Pictured above: Andrew Brentnall, head of development at Savills Nottingham 

New research from Savills shows a growing development shortfall for housing in the East Midlands.

The Savills Development Land Index anticipates that England will be short of 1.1 million homes by 2016 if more sites don't become available for building.

The shortage of developable land is due to low levels of planning consents. These are now being granted at little more than half the levels seen in 2006 and 2007. 

Across the UK , the Savills index shows that Greenfield building land values increased by 2.1 per cent and urban land values by 2.2 per cent in the first three months of 2011, bringing annual growth to 7.7 per cent and 6.7 per cent respectively. 

"We have begun to see a few large, well-capitalised players investing in strategic land with the aim of delivering serviced plots in good locations," says Andrew Brentnall, residential development director at Savills Nottingham.  "But such activity is not enough in relation to market demand."

"It is good news that the Government clearly recognises the contribution that house building can make to economic recovery and coalition policy seems intent on achieving higher levels of house building through the planning system.   The stated expectation that "the answer to development and growth should wherever possible be 'yes'" is highly welcome but needs to feed quickly into land supply to make any real impact on the housing deficit."

"These average gains are modest in the context of previous falls," adds Yolande Barnes, head of Savills research. "The value of most development land types continues to remain stubbornly low, with the risk that these low values discourage landowners from bringing it forward for development. The renewed bout of relatively modest growth is clear evidence that developers have adjusted to the new environment of restricted debt finance, recapitalised to a modest extent and are enjoying some renewed demand for certain types of their new build product.