Further details about our 5-year housing land supply and the Housing Delivery Test, which assesses progress in delivering new homes within the Borough
The Government requires Councils to significantly boosting the supply of new homes. This involves both looking forward for at least 5 years (supply) and back, for the previous 3 years (delivery); known respectively as the 5-year housing land supply and Housing Delivery Test (HDT).
5-year housing land supply
The National Planning Policy Framework requires the Council to maintain a sufficient housing land supply, for at least the next 5-years. This is published in the yearly Authority Monitoring Reports (AMRs).
The latest 5-year land supply data has been calculated for the 2023-24 monitoring period. This has been calculated at 7.9 years, for the period 1 April 2024 - 31 March 2029.
The 5-year housing land supply data has been calculated with reference to the (latest) published 2023-2024 trajectory (April 2024).
HDT
In 2018, the Government introduced a new test for Local Planning Authorities known as the Housing Delivery Test. This is part of a range of measures the Government is seeking to boost housing delivery throughout the country.
The HDT looks back at how many new homes have been delivered over the previous three years, against how many new homes should have been delivered (i.e. against Local Plan targets and/or local housing needs (LHN). Results are published by Government each year, and expressed as a percentage.
The results:
- govern the actions or measures we're required to take, or the penalties we face
- are fixed for the year and only change when the next set of results are published
HDT action plan
The latest HDT results (for 2022) were published by the Government on 19 December 2023. These identified a figure of 90%; thereby triggering a requirement for the Borough Council to prepare a HDT Action Plan. For comparison, the HDT result for 2021 was 96%, above the 95% target (so did not require preparation of an Action Plan).
The latest HDT Action Plan was prepared in response to the 2022 results. This:
- outlines the many proactive measures we're currently taking to enable new homes to be delivered;
- provides a detailed analysis of the latest housing trajectory schedule and other data sources; and
- sets out a series of appropriate actions necessary to enable the increase of both supply and delivery of new homes moving forward
The 2024 Action Plan is available to view through the link below.
The 2024 HDT Action Plan was approved by the Council under delegated powers. This was confirmed on 27 November 2024.
HDT Action plans were previously prepared in 2019 and 2020 (for the previous monitoring years), exploring national and local contexts, our current housing land supply position and past housing delivery.
These 2019 and 2020 Action Plans can be viewed below: