By Rico Wojtulewicz, Director of Policy and Market Insight, NFB
It may come as a surprise to some, but many children do not have the luxury of staying at home past their 16th birthday. For those who do, parents who thought a period of relative freedom was within touching distance are finding that the housing crisis is putting paid to that dream.
In 2014, 3.3 million 20- to 34-year-olds lived with their parents. In 2024, 3.6 million do.[1] Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) research released in January 2025 identified that the highest numbers of 24- to 25-year-olds living with their parents were in areas with the highest house price growth since 2006[2]. London leads the way for adult children living at home.
The cost of housing is regularly cited as the reason for the increase, a narrative confirmed by Skipton Group whose research surveyed 2,000 adults living with their parents and found 43 per cent wanted better access to affordable housing and rent support, 29% moved out but returned home and 83% of those saving for a deposit admitted to being a long way off.[3]
They survey also focused on the challenges of living in a multi-generational setting, with a lack of personal space and limited freedom considered the top two frustrations.
So, what is the solution? More housing is certainly needed, but it will take too long to solver the current crisis, taking more than four years for a site to go from application to completion. Perhaps it is time that planning also focused on existing homes being upgraded to sustain multi-generational living?
A story in The Times on 14 February highlighted this very approach, with parents altering their properties to more appropriately accommodate their adult children, help them save money and give them more time to build their careers. From ‘grad pads’ and loft conversions to multi-generational mortgages for garage conversions and extensions, many people are choosing to expand their existing home to help their kids survive the housing crisis.
Enabling innovation
The challenge will always be the cost of works, exacerbated by increased planning application and Building Regulation approval fees, and made more complex by Building Control officers refusals to give advice. However, this also serves as an opportunity for the government to not only stimulate the construction sector but advance Modern Methods of Construction (MMC) and their own planning reform agenda.
Previous governments have viewed MMC as offsite volumetric housing and therefore wasted its broad scope. Craned in lofts, 2D components assembled onsite into a 3D structure, steel frame spaces, pre-assembled garden rooms and panelised walls are all MMC, and not only perfect for extending homes but mixing traditional skills with modern solutions.
A craned in bedroom with electricity or plumbing will still needs connecting to a main homes utility supply and drainage system. A new floor or loft requires integration into existing structures. And panelised systems will need first and second fixes. Enabling the broader construction sector is vital because as well as being the leading industry for insolvencies, it remains gripped by worker shortages due to uncertain work pipelines.
Yet the barrier to innovation and pipeline certainty remains planning, even on extensions, and not only does this impact workers but reduces the opportunity for MMC innovation.
Who said you could build that?
While permitted development (PD) means avoiding a full planning application, making a single storey 3m to 4m side or rear extension straightforward, larger options will require prior approval and neighbour consultation.
Adding an extra floor or two can be PD but only for around a third of homes, as those built pre-1 July 1948 and post-28 October 2018 require full planning. Plus, qualifying homes have many caveats, such as not being able to use visible support structures.[4]
Works in conservation areas and national parks always require planning, and a lot of luck. Full planning is also required for a bedroom and/or kitchen not attached to the main home.
The list of what you might easily be able to do with your own home to facilitate better housing outcomes for your children is limited to say the least. And this limits who can benefit from PD or afford it!
It is therefore no surprise that one of the conversions in The Times featured Richard Dudzicki, an architect who spent close to £500,000 on his project. Yet the appetite for such projects remains, with 70% of the work at Richard’s studio involving designs to accommodate adult children.
England’s permitted development statistics show that granted applications have not returned to pre-Covid levels but there may be more at play, as the last time prior approvals (PD with strings) saw more granted than refused applications was in the quarter of July to September 2016. Planning fatigue and the discretionary process is a major reason that projects are not considered by homeowners. An aesthetic many politicians criticise but will not make the preferred alternative – a new roof style – as easy to get permission for.
Although there are curious restrictions on upward extensions, they do introduce a rules-based system, and it has worked. When PD for upward extensions was introduced in 2020, refusals were more common than permissions, but as industry go to grips with the policy there has been a switch and now more applications are granted than refused.
These approaches, as well as pattern books and supported reasoning, as was once popular on farms, like Rural Workers Dwellings, would better enable intergenerational living, while easing the pressure on the housing crisis. It is no silver bullet but, in a scenario where the UK has a shortfall of 4 million homes when compared to housing stock in other nations, every opportunity to fix the housing crisis must be taken.
[1]https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/birthsdeathsandmarriages/families/bulletins/familiesandhouseholds/2024
[2] https://ifs.org.uk/news/share-25-34-year-olds-living-parents-over-third-mid-2000s
[3] https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/36817827/adults-fed-up-living-with-parents-survey-reveals/
[4] https://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/2020/755/made
Image: Southend Builder, CC BY-SA 4.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0, via Wikimedia Commons
