The following frequently asked questions are related to the five year housing supply.
Update December 2024
What is a housing supply?
Housing supply is the system by which councils demonstrate that they have enough land in their planning system to meet the annual targets for new homes. Supply is assessed as part of a rolling annual review process. This is designed to ensure local authorities continuously meet their required contribution to national Government housebuilding targets. A review is published annually after March 31.
Why does the Council need to demonstrate they have a housing supply?
Paragraph 78 of the National Planning Policy Framework 2024 states that local planning authorities should identify and update annually a supply of specific deliverable sites sufficient to provide a minimum of five years’ worth of housing against their housing requirement set out in adopted strategic policies, or against their local housing need where the strategic policies are more than five years old. The supply of specific deliverable sites should in addition include a buffer (moved forward from later in the plan period) of 5% to ensure choice and competition in the market for land.
Who sets the housing target?
The system during recent years for setting the housing target for Charnwood has changed. In the past, it has been measured against the council’s current Local Plan housing requirement of 820 homes a year. However, once a Local Plan is more than five years old, the supply of land must instead be measured against local housing need. This is calculated using a Government formula. It means that Charnwood must revert to the Government’s standard algorithm for calculating need. When the new Local Plan is adopted and replaces the old Local Plan, the council can use the housing requirement set out in the new Local Plan.
How is Charnwood’s housing supply managed?
The council looks at housing sites which have either (i) already have planning permission or currently under construction or (ii) which are identified in a Local Plan as being likely to come forward for development over the coming five years. The council works out how many homes can be built on the land and compare against their housing target. This gives a supply figure. For example, Charnwood’s housing target for the next five years 2024 to 2029 is 978 new homes annually. As the supply of specific deliverable sites should in addition include a buffer of 5% to ensure choice and competition in the market for land, this equals 5,135 homes over the next five years. The council has calculated that the borough has 5,941 homes likely to come forward within the same period.
What is Charnwood’s current supply figure?
Charnwood has more than enough new homes to meet its housing target. The council’s supply figure is 5.78 years.
Can housebuilding be accelerated?
At the end of March 2024, Charnwood has approved potential developments for around 13,580 homes in its pipeline. However, the majority of the permissions relate to three large Sustainable Urban Extension (SUE) sites which have yet to be built (9,427 homes at end of March 2024).
The three SUE sites, at Garendon Park, Broadnook and Thorpebury, are complex developments. As such, they require other considerations, for example resolution of legal matters, to be concluded before work commences. Even then, the scale of the SUE developments means that most of the new homes are unlikely to be completed within the next five years. Therefore, some of the planned homes are not included in the current housing supply.
Around 4,150 homes with existing planning permission in the Borough exist outside of the three SUE sites. However, while councils can approve planning applications, they cannot force developers to build. Delays caused by external market pressures, such as the social and economic impact of the pandemic, may also slow completion of projects.
Why was housing supply focussed on the three Sustainable Urban Extensions?
Charnwood focussed development in the three SUE sites as part of the wider planning strategy to extend urban areas contained in its current Local Plan. In doing so, the authority could manage development in a way which supported regional infrastructure planning, for example around new roads and schools. It also meant that the bulk of planned development was confined to the extension of existing urban areas. This has benefits including preservation of the Borough’s countryside. The new Local Plan distributes housing development over the new plan period more evenly between SUE sites and a range of other locations.
What does this mean for future development?
The National Planning Policy Framework 2024 states that local housing policies contained in the Local Plan should not be considered up to date if the local authority cannot demonstrate a five-year supply of deliverable housing sites. It means that the council’s existing strategic planning policies relating to the location of new planning applications will carry less weight if the council don’t have a five-year supply.
What happens next?
The new Charnwood Local Plan 2021-37 has been submitted to Government and is currently in the examination phase. The public consultation on the proposed main modifications to the Local Plan to make the plan sound and legally compliant took place in summer 2024. The Inspectors will consider all the representations made on the proposed main modifications before finalising their examination report.
Last updated: Fri 13th December, 2024 @ 12:37