(July 2025)
What can previous British taxes on the development value of land teach us about policy-making on land value capture today? That was the question posed by a recent University of Cambridge Department of Land Economy research policy impact project, delivered in partnership with the TCPA.
The outputs from the project are available on this page. They include a research report, a discussion paper, and papers from two roundtables.
British development taxes since 1945
This research paper sets out what we know about previous development taxes – their origins, objectives and effects, and the cause of their eventual demise.
Drawing on 130 previous studies, it mounts a major challenge to the received wisdom about why these taxes were eventually repealed, exposing extensive research gaps. Instead, it finds that the taxes failed due to over-complex design, poor land economics, unnecessary complexity and naive political handling.
Development taxes and levies: lessons from the past, ideas for the future
This discussion paper argues that the existing system of developer contributions (section 106 agreements and Community Infrastructure Levy) suffers from a variety of structural and practical defects which make them insufficient to deliver on the government’s very challenging objectives to increase housing supply in England.
Drawing on the research, it identifies key principles for successful policy design and proposes a range of evolutionary and revolutionary options for broadening the amount of value that is captured, for application to local infrastructure and development impact mitigation.
Notes from two roundtables
To develop and test these ideas the authors held two in-person roundtable events in March and April 2025. We are very grateful to those who attended for their input.
Funding
This project was funded by the University of Cambridge’s Social Science Impact Fund (Higher Education Innovation Funding (HEIF) grant number: G130539), Department of Land Economy and Centre for Science & Policy; by the Town & Country Planning Association; and by the Lady Margaret Paterson Osborn Trust.
