Reform-led Councils and What They Might Mean for Housing

In the recent local government elections a relatively new political party – Reform UK – made major inroads and took control of a number of local authorities. In this piece we’ll take a strictly non-partisan look at what this could mean for housing policy (and enforcement) in local authorities.

Reform’s performance in the 2025 local government elections

Reform won 677 council seats out of the 1,750 seats contested. Overall, in this election, the party won more votes, more seats and took overall control of more councils than any other individual party.

Reform are now the controlling party in ten council areas – Staffordshire, Lincolnshire, County Durham, Lancashire, Derbyshire, Nottinghamshire, Kent, the City of Doncaster, North Northamptonshire and West Northamptonshire. It is the largest party in four other areas. The party also has two Reform regional mayors, in Greater Lincolnshire and Hull & East Yorkshire.

It is important to bear in mind that many areas did not have local council elections this year. This includes London boroughs, some large cities, and also some other areas where elections were postponed pending local government reorganisation.

Implications for local government

This is very difficult to forecast as we are very much into uncharted territory, but there are a few takeaways.

Over the years, councillors from the established parties have generally maintained the status quo when it comes to local issues. However, Reform councillors are bringing new ideas to the local government table. Who knows what they could be as yet?

Many Reform councillors are new to local government and inexperienced in its operation. Reform has said that it will expand what it calls its centre of excellence to train up new councillors. But that could take some time. In the meantime, the inexperience of these new councillors could be reflected in council decisions.

Prior to the 2024 general election Reform published a manifesto-style document, Our Contract With You, which gives some idea of how Reform politicians might look to operate. Broadly, amongst other things, they appear to take a ‘light touch’ approach to regulation, want to pursue value for money for taxpayers and concentrate spending on basic public services.

After the recent elections party Leader Nigel Farage has been quoted as saying: “We want to give council taxpayers better value for money, reduce excessive expenditure, find out who long-term contracts are with, reduce the scale of local government back to what it ought to be – providing social care, providing SEN needs for kids, mending pot holes.”

Nigel Farage has also spoken of his liking for a US DOGE (Department of Government Efficiency) type drive in government here. He has gone so far as to suggest council staff who work in areas such as climate change or DEI (diversity, equality and inclusion) might no longer have a job.

Some will wonder what a Reform local council efficiency drive could mean for housing enforcement. Could this put budgets for housing licensing and housing enforcement teams under even more pressure than they are at the moment?

Of course, it is easy enough to talk about cutting budgets and striving for efficiency. But much more difficult to do it. Most who work in, or with, local government will probably tell you that after 15 years or so of very constrained budgets there are very few remaining ways that budgets could be cut further.

Implications for housing

Prior to the 2024 general election both Conservative and Labour made quite extensive housing-related pledges in their manifestos. Reform’s proposals were not quite as detailed, but their Our Contract With You document gave some indication of what their housing policies might be.

In Our Contract With You Reform suggested that their solution to the housing crisis would involve a two-pronged approach – both widening home ownership by ‘unleashing housebuilding’ and cutting immigration.

Other housing-related measures they proposed include reviewing the planning system to make housebuilding easier, reforming social housing law to prioritise local people for housing, and scrapping Section 24 mortgage interest tax allowance restrictions to ‘encourage smaller landlords into the rental markets’.

Reform appear to be no supporter of radical reforms to PRS legislation. Nigel Farage, who apparently is a landlord himself, has called the Renters’ Rights Bill ‘a huge mistake’ and ‘self defeating’.

In Reform’s Contract With You they pledged that, should they form a government, they would abolish the then Renters (Reform) Bill. However they said that they would ‘boost the monitoring, appeals and enforcement process for renters with grievances.’

Many will ask does that make Reform pro-landlord and pro-PRS …. or not?

Of course, the Renters’ Rights Bill looks likely to come into force this year. And in any case local authorities do not have much choice whether to enforce it or not. So it is likely to be the next general election, currently scheduled for 2029, before they could have any say at all in the future direction of rental market legislation.

More interesting, perhaps, is the issue  of housing licensing. This is indeed the direct responsibility of local councils. So Reform councillors in those councils they control now have a say in this to some extent.

While local councils don’t have any say in whether or not to licence large HMOs they have a say in whether or not to licence small HMOs (by way of additional licensing), whether to introduce selective licensing areas, and of course whether to use Article 4 to require planning permission for new HMOs.

Very relevant here is the introduction of the General Approval rules at the end of 2024. This allows local authorities much more freedom in introducing or renewing selective licensing schemes. (See our article about this here: Important Changes to Selective Licensing: General Approval 2024)

Some landlords feel that local authorities are all too keen to introduce selective licensing schemes, often with their revenue-raising potential in mind. So, could Reform run councils – with their light touch-low budget ethos – decline to introduce new schemes, or not renew or even cancel existing ones? And just as importantly, what could this mean for council budgets?

Lastly, let us look at two more housing-related issues where a Reform-controlled council could lead to a change in direction.

Reform are broadly in favour of restricting immigration into the UK. In Our Contract With You they say ‘we will freeze immigration and stop the boats’. Reform have said they will resist central government’s policy of dispersing asylum seekers into the areas they now run. They have said that they could act to prevent landlords from evicting local tenants in order to accommodate asylum seekers on lucrative government accommodation contracts. These policies could have implications for the PRS in some areas.

At the end of the day, of course, these again are areas of government responsibility and local authorities do not have any direct control of them. However, could Reform-led councils potentially decline planning consent, or licences, for accommodation where it is required? Reform Chairman Zia Yusuf has also suggested that Reform councils could pursue further legal challenges on the planning and licensing status of hotels which are used as asylum seeker accommodation. (Something which has already been pursued by existing councils in some areas.)

On a separate issue, Reform has pledged to abandon net zero initiatives. It has been suggested this could impact the continuance of energy efficiency schemes in local authority housing. In turn, this could have some implications for housing standards in those areas.

Final thoughts

In summary – and while remaining completely apolitical and balanced – what impact is the rise of Reform UK-run councils likely to have on housing policy in the areas they control? Will they actually take a radical new approach or will they, ultimately, maintain the status quo?

A fair summary might be that it is still a little early to say.

If Reform achieves similar performance in next year’s council elections, there could be many more Reform-led councils, which could accelerate the pace of change. The 2026 local council elections will see elections in London boroughs and some large cities which all tend to have very large private rented sectors.

Yet all of us, whatever our political allegiances (or of none), will recognise that when political parties come into power they do not always do what they said they would.

It’s also worth re-emphasising that what local authorities can and cannot do is ultimately controlled by central government.

At the moment Reform are predicting stellar results in the next UK general election, currently scheduled for 2029. But that is still a long time away. However, they are also hoping to do well in the Scottish and Welsh government elections in 2026. Both these administrations have considerable powers over housing and this could prove to be another turning point.

As things stand, however, the new Reform UK-run councils have the opportunity to begin to take some local housing policies off in a new direction to some extent. And this is something everyone in the industry will need to keep tabs on as the year progresses.