March 2020
Patrick Griffin, LGBC Vice-chair, writes
In March 2019, we provided some comment and analysis from the London Green Belt Council on a report by the National Audit Office, which included those councils potentially at risk arising from the Housing Delivery Test.
The Government introduced new measures for new homes in local council areas in 2018 (NPPF 73). Where delivery has fallen below 95% of its housing requirement over the previous three years, the authority should prepare an action plan to assess the causes of under delivery and identify actions to increase delivery in future years. Failure to deliver on these targets results in increasing penalties for non-performance, leaving the door open to speculative development planning applications.
However, for those councils with under 85% of their requirement, they will be required to add a 20% buffer to their five-year housing land supply requirement, instead of the usual 5% buffer. It is worse still for those under 45%, as they will be vulnerable to speculative applications because their local planning policies for housing will be deemed out-of-date.
The London Green Belt Council believes that the Housing Delivery Test is a serious concern. It is the developers who build the homes, not the councils. Local authorities cannot increase the supply of new homes just through their own efforts. It is unreasonable for local authorities to be given the responsibility for meeting housing delivery targets, but not the authority and control to achieve these. More detail can be found in our March 2020 Newsletter, under Reports on our Information page