The nimby, for years a fixture of parish council meetings and planning committee inboxes, is starting to look like a minority voice.
Some 43 per cent of UK adults now support the building of new homes within three miles of where they live, while 22 per cent actively oppose local development, according to a survey by Barclays. The bank, which polled hundreds of people around the country, concluded that “Britain is more yimby [yes in my back yard] than nimby [not in my back yard]”.
For investors, the finding is less a cultural curiosity than a read on planning risk. Sites that a decade ago would have attracted organised local resistance now face an electorate that, on balance, sits on the developer’s side of the argument.
Younger adults are driving the shift
Support is strongest among those locked out of ownership. Barclays found 51 per cent of Gen Z, those born between 1997 and 2012, want more homes built in their local area.
“It’s really encouraging to see strong support for building more homes, particularly among younger people who face the greatest barriers to home ownership,” said Adrian MacDiarmid, head of mortgage lender relations at Barratt Redrow, the country’s biggest housebuilder.
Opposition, predictably, rises with age. Just over a quarter, 26 per cent, of Baby Boomers, now in their sixties and seventies, oppose local housebuilding, against 16 per cent of Gen Z. Even so, support outweighs opposition among older respondents too, which matters because older residents are the demographic most likely to turn up and object.
Objections are practical, not personal
Barclays found that nimbys’ concerns were often “practical, not purely personal”. Among those opposed to local development, loss of green space was the leading worry at 61 per cent, followed by pressure on local services such as hospitals and schools at 57 per cent.
Only 7 per cent objected because new homes might reduce the value of their own property, puncturing the assumption that opposition is self-interest dressed up as civic duty.
“New homes are critical to easing tension in the housing supply, but attitudes towards development are nuanced,” said Jatin Patel, head of mortgages at Barclays. “While UK consumers are broadly supportive of efforts to increase housing supply, this has to be in step with investment in local infrastructure, healthcare and transport links.”
The survey also points to the price of consent. Some 26 per cent of those who oppose local development said a new doctors’ surgery would make them more likely to support a scheme, with investment in roads and green space also shifting opinion. Developer contributions, in other words, are buying goodwill as well as ticking a policy box.
Buyers still want houses, not flats
There remains the question of whether housebuilders are building what people actually want. Despite the industry’s focus on high-rise blocks in town and city centres, Barclays’ data shows houses are considerably more popular with buyers.
About 82 per cent of homes bought by first-time buyers over the past 12 months were houses, rising to 89 per cent among all other buyers.
That mismatch has been visible in pricing for some time, from new-build price falls in the East Midlands to the advice offered by Zoopla’s Richard Donnell, who has argued the case for a three-bedroom house in a commuter town over a small urban flat.
What this means for investors
Softer local opposition does not by itself deliver homes. Government figures show 143,110 dwellings were completed in England in the year to 31 March 2026, down 6 per cent on the previous year, while net additions to the housing stock reached 208,600 in 2024-25. Research has already warned that Labour will fall well short of its 1.5 million homes target.
The constraint, then, is viability and delivery rather than public mood. For land investors and small developers, that argues for schemes with a visible infrastructure offer attached, since a surgery or a stretch of road now looks like the cheapest route through a planning committee.
For buy-to-let and portfolio landlords, the product signal is the sharper one. Demand is stubbornly weighted towards houses while much of the pipeline is flats, which points to continued pricing power for family homes in commuter locations and a lingering discount on new-build apartment stock. Public opinion has moved. Whether the diggers follow is the next question.
