Rubbish Check
Daily Mail Money · 18 August 2026
source“Home building falling well short of Labour’s 1.5m target – as property giant warns completion rate is set to worsen”
R2/ 10
Lightly altered
Rubbish Rating — 1 = base fact, 10 = pure rubbish
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In short
Rubbish Talk rates Daily Mail Money's claim that home building is "falling well short" of Labour's 1.5m target a 2/10 because the reported 202,700 annual completions and Savills' forecast of a further slide to 167,500 a year both sit well below the 300,000-a-year pace needed, matching the headline almost word for word.
The Verdict
Lightly altered. This is close to the base fact: the numbers in the body support both halves of the headline, the shortfall and the forward-looking warning of worsening completions, with no loaded language doing extra work.
What actually happened
Estate agent Savills' analysis, based on mandatory Energy Performance Certificate data, found homes were being built well below the pace needed to hit Labour's 1.5 million target. Separately, Savills forecast that the completion rate will fall further over the coming years, and planning permission data from Glenigan/HBF showed approvals for private housing sites hitting a record low.
Key facts
- Only 202,700 homes were built in the year to June 2026, according to data analysed by estate agent Savills, a rise of 0.4 per cent from the previous three month period, based on new Energy Performance Certificate registrations.
- The government needs an average of 300,000 new homes a year to hit the 1.5m target by 2029, per the article; independent reporting confirms Savills' forecast that new homes completions in England will average 167,500 per year over the five years to 2029/30, falling some way short of the government's target of 300,000 homes a year.
- That 167,500 figure is just 56% of the target, and Savills separately estimates around 189,000 new homes were built in 2025/26 but expects output to fall sharply over the next two years, to just over 150,000 homes in both 2026/27 and 2027/28.
- The number of developments getting planning permission also fell to a new low in the first three months of this year, according to data from Glenigan and the Home Builders Federation, revealing just 1,220 sites for private housing granted planning approval across England, the lowest since the dataset began in 2006.
What to watch for
- Whether Savills' next quarterly update revises the 167,500 forecast down further given the collapsing planning-permission pipeline reported here.
- The October launch of the Building Safety Levy, which the HBF warns will make some sites unviable, is a concrete near-term test of whether completions dip faster than forecast.
- Watch for whether ministers shift blame framing (materials costs, mortgage rates) as further misses accumulate ahead of the 2029 deadline.
About this scoreThe R-Score is Rubbish Talk's editorial opinion on how far a headline's framing sits from what the underlying facts support. It is a judgement about presentation and emphasis, not an allegation that any outlet has acted dishonestly. Every figure we rely on is linked under Receipts so you can check it yourself.
