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Overcoming Planning Delays in UK Housing Delivery: RenKap at Housing 2025
Picture from What’s working in planning and what needs to change to accelerate the delivery of 1.5M homes roundtable during Housing 2025
Last month our founder, Gonzalo Marquesini had the opportunity to attend Housing 2025 in Manchester, where we joined a private roundtable hosted by TerraQuest and the UK PropTech Association to discuss how to overcome the blockers in planning and housing delivery. It was a powerful opportunity to engage in real conversations about the barriers to housing delivery and how technology can help overcome them.
The timing couldn’t have been better. After years of disruption for Housing Associations—cladding issues, pandemic-related slowdowns, damp and mould challenges—many housing associations have been forced to pause new development. But just days before the event, the government announced £39 billion in funding for affordable housing, and suddenly, housing delivery is back in focus.
With a national target of 1.5 million new homes, there’s renewed urgency—but also a shared understanding: we need to fix the front-end of housing development if we want to meet that goal.
The Hidden Bottleneck in Housing Development
A recurring theme at Housing 2025 was the impact of early-stage delays on housing delivery. Before any building can begin, land must be surveyed, scoped, and assessed—yet this stage remains slow, fragmented, and heavily manual.
For SME developers in particular, these early hurdles introduce significant risk. Procurement, supplier engagement, and due diligence often become obstacles rather than enablers. The core challenge is finding ways to de-risk the front end of the process so that projects can move forward with greater speed and certainty.
What We’re Building at RenKap
At RenKap, we’re addressing this friction head-on with our Site Survey Marketplace—a platform that simplifies and accelerates land enablement and site investigation.
Our platform offers:
- Upload a site and select their required surveys (e.g. asbestos, utilities, ecology, topographical, etc)
- Instantly receive 3+ quotes per survey from a pre-vetted network of surveyors – all like-for-like on a comparable scope
Select and instruct multiple surveyors – one contract and one invoice
Track survey progress live, manage site access, and approve RAMS (risk assessments & method statements)
Receive all survey outputs digitally, with an automated risk register summarising key findings and recommended next steps
Instruct any additional recommended surveys directly from the risk register with a single click
This translates to shorter pre-planning timelines, more confidence in early decisions, and less site risk.
Collaborating for Change: Insights from the Housing 2025 Roundtable
One of the most energising moments of Housing 2025 was being invited to attend a private roundtable with TerraQuest, hosted by the UK PropTech Association. The session focused on a key question: What’s working in planning—and what still needs to change to accelerate the delivery of 1.5 million homes?
Daniel Williams (CRO at TerraQuest) chaired the session, joined by Helen Fadipe MBE, President of the Royal Town Planning Institute. We had a dynamic discussion with participants from across the public and private sectors.
Sammy Pahal, MD of the UK PropTech Association, shared insight from the Opportunity for PropTech report, highlighting how data and automation can streamline planning.
Key themes included:
- Viability and procurement as persistent blockers
- Unlocking and standardising access to planning data
- Planner shortages—and the role of automation in alleviating them
- The sector’s growing appetite for new technology
- A real need for collaboration between tech, planners, and developers
Takeaways from Housing 2025
Across both the conference and the roundtable, the message was clear: the industry is ready to move and innovate to get homes built.
Some of our top takeaways:
- Housing associations want to restart development, but need viability data upfront to act with confidence.
- Local authorities are overstretched, and need better tools—not more admin.
- SME developers are critical to delivery targets, but still underserved when it comes to early-stage support.
- Technology is no longer a ‘nice to have’. The appetite for adoption is there—it’s time to meet it with usable solutions.
- Need to streamline the process of managing all the necessary planning surveys and conditions.
Why It Matters
At RenKap, we’re committed to closing the gap between ambition and delivery. We’ve built a platform that empowers developers, housing associations, local authorities, and consultants to de-risk early decisions and unlock land faster.
Being at Housing 2025—and part of that powerful roundtable conversation—was a reminder of the urgent need for change, and the impact we can have when we collaborate across sectors.
We’re excited to keep building, keep listening, and keep enabling better, faster housing delivery.