Local plan status

10 years on, 1 in 5 local planning authorities still lack an NPPF-compliant plan

2022 saw a slowdown in the planning system, with only 15 English local planning authorities (LPAs) adopting a new or revised local plan. This compares poorly with previous years: between 2012 and 2022, 27 new plans were adopted on average each year. A key cause has been policy uncertainty: since last October, 26 local plans, affecting 45 LPAs in total, have stalled or been withdrawn.

The new plans take the number of LPAs covered by a National Planning Policy Framework-compliant plan to 250, or 80% of all authorities in England. Once a plan has been adopted, LPAs are required to update it every five years. Of those with an NPPF-compliant plan, half are currently undertaking a review.

Five year land supply

Over a third of local planning authorities lack a proven five-year land supply

Ensuring an adequate supply of land for house-building remains a key issue for many local planning authorities in England. At present, LPAs are required to allocate the equivalent of five years’ worth of land.

116 LPAs lack a five-year land supply either through published figures or by appeal, up from 111 in our update published in June 2022. Without a demonstrable supply, LPAs risk having planning decisions made for them at appeal. In order to encourage plan adoption, the Government recently mooted removing the requirement to demonstrate a five year land supply if the LPA has an up-to-date local plan.  

Removing 5YHLS 

At present, all local planning authorities in England are required to prove that they have a rolling five-year supply of deliverable land for housing, to ensure there is always sufficient land allocated to meet their housing need. Failure to do so can result in developers being able to bring forward sites outside the local plan process. 

But the Government has recently proposed removing this requirement if LPAs have an “up-to-date” plan – that is, one adopted or reviewed less than five years ago. They claim this will incentivise timely adoption of local plans, by concurrently removing the threat of a ‘tilted balance’ towards sustainable development where local authorities have an up-to-date plan but questionable land supply.

There’s something to be said for this argument: local plans already have to identify five years’ worth of supply in order to be adopted, and plans are required to be replaced after that period. The government has also previously claimed that the change would limit the ability of developers to engage in legal gamesmanship against local authorities with borderline supply figures, where the former try to gain planning consents by proving a local authority has fallen just short of the five year mark. Finally, it may reduce the workload on over-stretched local planning officers, allowing them more time to consider applications and regularly review their local plans.

But this argument only holds if adopting a plan does, in fact, go hand-in-hand with a solid supply of housing land. Unfortunately, the data does not bear this out. Of the 95 LPAs that have adopted a local plan in the last five years and are not currently reviewing their planning policies, over a third (36%) were unable to prove five years’ worth of housing land as of December 2022, and 23% are expected to fall short of their housing targets in the 2023 Housing Delivery Test.

The likely effect of removing the requirement, therefore, may be more LPAs with up-to-date local plans, but fewer with a solid supply of housing land, and lower overall housing delivery in England.

Housing delivery test

1 in 3 local authorities set to fail 2022 Housing Delivery Test

When the 2023 Housing Delivery Test is published in January, we expect that two thirds (67%) of local planning  authorities in England will pass the test. This is a downgrade from our earlier assessment in June, when 72% were on course to pass.

66 LPAs will fail to meet even 75% of their housing need, and so, under current planning rules, will face a presumption in favour of sustainable development in 2023. Of the authorities facing presumption in favour, over half (53%) are in the South East and East of England, while only 12% of failing LPAs are in the north.