Research Context

Land values lie at the heart of widening social inequalities today. Who should be the primary beneficiary of these land values? Who or what should own the value of land and in what proportion? In England, answers to these fundamental political questions are hashed out in an arcane policy area: land value capture.

This is the mechanism that shapes how land value increases that are the result of public policy or development decisions are distributed between state, community and private actors. It is a key means by which affordable housing is delivered. As the housing crisis becomes an emergency, with landownership and property-based accumulation at its centre, land value capture has risen up the political agenda in recent years.

Now is therefore the time to step back from the everyday practice of, and debates on, land value capture to examine the broader political-economic currents and power relations that structure it. The contention is that land value capture is more than a technocratic arena in which pragmatic decisions are made about the appropriate allocation of development spoils. It is, instead, a highly political and contested field in which questions of power and ideology play a central role.

Research Contributions

Thanks to its grounding in empirical data of over 50 interviews, this research makes a major and distinctive contribution to the existing policy and academic literature. It achieves this by engaging with the detail of contemporary land value capture policy and practice while situating it in relation to broader political economic histories and dynamics of power, expertise and political ideas. In doing so, the report explains why land value capture is a salient and challenging, yet important area of land policy.

The report argues that land value capture manages and holds together the structural flaws of the existing land, housing and development settlement without resolving them. Rather, it helps to prevent the worst excesses of injustice and inefficiency that would pertain if the distribution of development value was entirely unregulated, while helping to secure the ongoing legitimacy of a system that has failed to produce politically, socially, environmentally or economically acceptable outcomes.

The analysis demonstrates how this is not a technical policy design failure but a fundamental structural flaw. Thus, while there are certainly incremental policy adjustments that can and should be made to improve outcomes in the short-term, what is truly needed are more ambitious social-redistributive measures involving landed property and its value combined with a wider range of less speculative development models.

Intended Audience

The intended audience of this landmark report is the ‘reflective practitioner’ as well as the ‘interested non-specialist’. The authors hope that it will be a useful resource for planning and development professionals, policymakers, politicians, campaigners and community members who desire an accessible yet comprehensive and academically grounded analysis of the history and contemporary politics of this complex policy area.

Note: The report was updated on 29 April 2026 to resolve minor typographical issues and enhance transparency of the reporting of Appendix B data on page 65.