Local Plan delivery

More local authorities are withdrawing their plans from examination 

• 71% of local authorities have adopted an NPPF- compliant Plan – up from 58% in 2019
• 40% of adopted NPPF- compliant Plans are over five years old and due for a review
• Six local authorities have withdrawn their draft local plans or had them fail at examination in the last year
• 138 local authorities have an NPPF- compliant Plan
• 33% of housing need under the standard approach is located in local authorities yet to adopt a local plan

Seven more local authorties have adopted an NPPF-compliant plan since April 2020, bringing the total to 71% of all local authorities across England. However, 40% of adopted NPPF-compliant plans are over five years old and therefore will require a review. This figure remains unchanged since the summer, showing that plan reviews are occuring as quickly as plans are going out of date.

Overall the sum of Local Plan targets represents 80% of housing need according to the government’s standard approach housing need figures. This means there is a shortfall of 54,000 homes being planned for. This shortfall is largest for local authorities without NPPF-compliant Plans which have combined targets of only 58% of the standard approach need. This compares to 95% for local authorities with an NPPF-compliant plan less than five years old.

Following the withdrawal of some plans, there are now 68 authorities yet to submit a draft for examination. A further 29 authorities are waiting for their submitted draft to be approved at examination.

Five year land supply

Local authorities are still falling short on five year land supply

• As of November 2020, local authorities average 6.2 years of land supply. This is an increase from 6.1 in March 2020
• 46% of local authorities unable to demonstrate a five year land supply also do not have an up-to date local plan
• 40% of those who failed at appeal have yet to adopt an up-to-date local plan
• Seven repeat offenders had a lack of land supply confirmed at appeal in the year to November 2019 and the year to November 2020

Nearly a third of local authorities failed to identify sufficient land supply for new housing. 7% of authorities had a lack of land supply confirmed at appeal in the year to November 2020 with a further 21% publishing less than five years of land supply in their most recent statements.

Finding sufficient land supply was the most challenging for authorities in London’s commuter belt, Sussex, and Dorset. There was also a concentration of authories in the Greater Manchester area that either published fewer than five years or had their position disproved at appeal in the last year.

Almost half of authorities that don’t have a land supply don’t have a plan. For local authorities with a land supply, this figure is reduced to just over a fifth. So local authorities with a plan in place, and a clear framework for housing delivery over the course of the plan, are better equipped to identify and bring forward a suitable pipeline of deliverable sites.

Methodolgy

We have applied a simple five year land supply calculation to all local authorities in England using the LPA published supply figures. No adjustment has been made to the supply, and the methodology does not impose any different treatment of the basic requirement other than it being annualised (spread equally over the next five years). The map indicates categories based on the result, which allows a like-for-like comparison between authorities and echoes the arguments being used in appeals based on five year land supply across the country.