Sunita Somvanshi
A major London developer is warning about housing supply constraints. John Mulryan, chief executive of Ballymore Group, has argued that London’s future housing supply could become increasingly constrained because projects are becoming harder to finance and deliver.
Ballymore’s own London development pipeline is around 16,000 homes. That sounds like a large number. But pipelines are projects at various stages—some approved, some under construction, some still being designed. The company has gained Registered Provider status to help unlock affordable-housing delivery.
Ballymore has previously identified rising costs, falling development values, and stalled schemes as barriers to housing delivery. These are documented industry challenges. Rising construction costs reduce project viability. As costs go up and property values stay flat or decline, the economics of housing projects change.
The practical barriers to delivering homes are multiple. If projects can’t be financed because costs have risen relative to available funding, those homes may not be built. This is the core constraint that Mulryan’s warning highlights.
Ballymore’s position is that planning permission for housing is necessary but not sufficient. You also need financing, construction costs that make economic sense, and a market willing to pay what the building costs.
The government has tried to address housing delivery with various measures. Policy attention focuses on accelerating construction and removing regulatory barriers. The challenge Mulryan identifies is primarily financial: the gap between what it costs to build and what the market will pay.
Mulryan’s warning doesn’t mean homes won’t be built at all. It means the pace of delivery will be slower than the number of planning permissions suggests. It also means not all planned projects will proceed.
The useful angle here is understanding that housing crises aren’t solved by planning permission alone. Permission is necessary but not sufficient. You also need financing and economics that work. When those pieces don’t align, you get a pipeline of approved homes that don’t exist yet—and may never exist.
