The January 2018 UK residential development land report by Savills has revealed that land values are growing faster than average in the North and Scotland, while housing associations are getting increasingly competitive in their land buying.

Savills reports: ‘Land values are growing faster than average in the North, where we forecast higher than average house prices in the next five years. Investment by Homes England is supporting development in this region, helping to increase the number of developers in the market to meet local housing need.

'Housebuilders have enjoyed a relatively benign land market recently, thanks to limited competition and a growing number of consents being delivered. Unless land supply continues to grow, this is likely to change as more developers, including housing associations, are now competing for sites.’

According to the report, the major housebuilders are replacing land they have built out on, sourcing more permissioned land from their own strategic pipelines, and they are focusing on controlled growth. This has resulted in slow growth of greenfield land values – up 1.7% annually.