LOCAL PLAN STATUS

Despite improving rates of plan adoption, only one in five English local authorities have an up to date local plan

After a very disappointing previous year, 2024 has seen a relatively solid start when it comes to plan adoption. Six local planning authorities (LPAs) have adopted a new Local Plan as of May – already half as many as adopted across the whole of 2023. Nevertheless, this improved rate of plan adoption will have to be sustained if 2024 is to beat the five year average of 21 new plans a year. Given the slow rate at which new plans progress to being adopted, this seems unlikely.

Once a plan has been adopted, LPAs are required to update it every five years. At present, however, only 22% of LPAs have adopted a plan in the last five years. Of those without an up to date plan, 60% are at least in the process of adopting a new plan, a significant decline from the 78% seen at the end of 2023. 

54 LPAs – 18% across England – are in need of a new plan but have failed to make any progress towards adopting one. Furthermore, nearly twelve years after the introduction of the National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF) in 2012, 52 LPAs have still to adopt a plan that is compliant with the NPPF, only a marginal improvement on the previous year.

LOCAL PLAN DIFFICULTIES

The plan adoption process is increasingly slow and dysfunctional

Repeated changes to the planning system in recent years have caused plan adoption to slow down, as LPAs pause the process to see what the changing rules mean for them. This trend peaked in 2023, with an estimated 43 plans, covering 61 LPAs (roughly a sixth of all authorities in England), being either delayed or withdrawn. This trend has begun to reverse as LPAs publish new timelines and being to progress their plans again. 

Nevertheless, the loss of nearly two years of plan-making in some cases has meant that the pace of adoption has become glacial. In 2010, it took an average of 1.2 years to advance from a Regulation 19 plan to formal adoption. By 2023, that had risen to a high of 3.9 years. Similarly, plan examinations are taking longer – rising from 0.6 years in 2010 to 3.3 years in 2023.  68 LPAs – 23% - progressed their emerging plans between December 2023 and May 2024, despite 78% of LPAs requiring a new plan. Of those that did progress their plan, only one in three managed to reach adoption. 

In some cases, the changing regulatory environment appears to have encouraged LPAs to withdraw plans if they no longer feel required to adopt contentious elements. For example, both Basildon and Castle Point have withdrawn their local plans due to concerns about the level of Green Belt release required under earlier iterations of the NPPF.  In the case of Castle Point, this was even after the plan had already been found sound by an examiner and was ready for adoption. 

The lack of new local plans will impact housing land supply and result in greater levels of ‘planning by appeal’. Without new plans or reviews, housing allocations are slowly exhausted, allowing developers to successfully appeal against an authority on grounds of insufficient housing land supply.

FIVE YEAR LAND SUPPLY

Nearly two in five local planning authorities lack a proven five-year land supply

Ensuring an adequate supply of land for house-building remains a key issue. LPAs are generally required to allocate the equivalent of five years’ worth of land, although there are exemptions. 

The land supply situation appears to have improved, with 67% of LPAs having adequate land in May 2024, compared to 52% at the end of 2023. This has not been caused by a significant increase in supply, however: the number of homes in allocations increased by only 2% over the same period. Instead, recent NPPF revisions, such as removing the 5% buffer and raising the threshold at which the more stringent 20% buffer applies, have made it easier for LPAs to pass.

Savills estimates authorities have allocated 6.4 years’ worth of land for housing on average across England, down slightly from 6.5 in December 2023. These figures mask a wide divergence between authorities, with current land supply figures ranging from the equivalent of 0.2 years to over 37 years. 

Critically, 32% of LPAs across England lack a five-year land supply either through publishing a lower figure or having recently lost at appeal on the basis of land supply. The situation is worst in London, where only 36% of LAs could prove a robust supply of housing land. 

The four-YEAR rule

One in three local planning authorities is now exempt or able to pass the five year housing land supply requirement thanks to relaxation of the rules

In December 2023, the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities announced two changes to the National Planning Policy Framework that alter land supply requirements. Firstly, the Government removed the requirement to demonstrate a five year land supply if the LPA has an up-to-date local plan, as the process of local plan adoption requires a five year land supply to be proved. Secondly if an LPA has made sufficient progress towards adopting a new local plan, they only have to prove four years’ worth of land supply, rather than five. 

While seemingly minor, the result of these changes has been to considerably ease the requirements for proving land supply. We estimate that as of May 2024, 39% of LPAs are now either exempt from the requirement, or have passed the requirement due to the four year rule. 

While many of those who are exempt would have passed the five year test regardless, 18 local authorities passed due to the four year rule. The largest number of these local authorities are in the West Midlands, followed by the South East. The rule is temporary and set to expire in December 2025. Some uncertainty remains, however, over exactly what constitutes sufficient progress towards adopting a new plan, and how many authorities the rule will ultimately apply to.