Every now and again, something happens in the property world that makes me sit up and take notice. Not because it’s necessarily going to transform the market overnight, but because of what it tells us about the direction of travel. And if you’re involved in property, particularly if you’re thinking about becoming a property developer, understanding that direction of travel can be every bit as important as understanding the rules as they exist today.

We’ve just had one of those moments. The Government has been making some significant changes to the planning system. Among the headlines about housing targets, planning reform and building around transport hubs, there’s a message which I think property investors should pay particular attention to. The Government wants more small and medium-sized developers building homes.

And when I say that, I don’t mean that I’ve tried to read between the lines of an obscure planning document and come up with a theory. The Government has been remarkably explicit. It’s introduced a new category of medium development covering schemes of between 10 and 49 homes, wants planning requirements to become more proportionate for these sites, and is looking to simplify some of the processes and costs developers face. There are also proposals to standardise elements of Section 106 agreements for medium-sized developments, potentially making another traditionally complicated part of the planning process more predictable.

There are moves to support suitable housing development around well-connected transport hubs. None of this means that planning permission has suddenly become easy. I’ve worked in this industry for over 40 years, and I’d be extremely surprised if anybody ever managed to make the British planning system genuinely simple. But focusing exclusively on the detail risks missing the bigger point. The Government needs more homes, and it’s realised that it can’t rely solely on the major housebuilders to provide them.

Back in the late 1980s, small and medium-sized housebuilders were responsible for a much larger proportion of Britain’s new homes. Their contribution has fallen dramatically since then, and housebuilding has become increasingly concentrated among a relatively small number of very large organisations.