This project examines the political economy of land value capture policy in England to improve understanding of the ideas and interests driving the social distribution of development land values.

Political questions concerning land ownership, land access and how land value should be distributed have returned to the national agenda. This has been driven by the pressures of the housing crisis and the unequal distribution of wealth held in land. Political space has opened for new policy ideas regarding the social distribution of land values.

The project will analyse the role of political discourses, the naturalisation of economic ideas and the representation of ideological preference as technical practice, in directing and constraining the direction of land value capture policy. This will aid understanding of how land issues are framed, why some policies have been preferred over others and to what end.

Findings from the research will be of interest to planners, politicians and policy experts who are interested in developing a more systematic understanding of the political and ideational forces that shape land value capture policymaking and practice.

This three-year research project, funded by the Economic and Social Research Council, is in its early stages. Research outputs and findings will be added to this webpage as they become available.

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