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 position and Housing Delivery Test (HDT).
5-year housing land supply position
The National Planning Policy Framework requires the Council to maintain a sufficient housing land supply, for at least the next 5-years.
The latest 5-year land supply position has been calculated for the 2023-24 monitoring period and shows that our position is 7.9 years’ worth (against a minimum of 5 years’ worth), 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). It is also provided in our yearly Authority Monitoring Reports (AMRs).
Housing Delivery Test (HDT)
In 2018, the Government introduced a new test for Local Planning Authorities known as the Housing Delivery Test (HDT).
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.). Results are published by Government each year, and expressed as a percentage of local housing need.
The results are usually fixed until the next results are published, and the percentage rate dictates the consequences.
HDT results
The latest HDT results (2023) were published by the Government on 12 December 2024. These identified a figure of 60%. However, we have been in dialogue with Government, following which the Government has now recalculated our results, at 87%.
Official confirmation of the result is available below:
The result means that we will need to update our HDT Action Plan, which should be produced and published by summer 2025.
HDT action plan
Our 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 and can be viewed below: