Savills : Local Plan system is now working well but there are gaps in the supply of land for housing

^{Source Savills Research, up to date as of November 2021}

Nearly a third of local authorities have failed to identify sufficient land supply for new housing. Ten per cent of authorities had a lack of land supply confirmed at appeal in the year to November 2021 with a further 23 per cent publishing under five years of land supply in their most recent statements.

For local authorities requiring nutrient neutrality as a condition of planning approval this figure is slightly higher, at 39 per cent. When you include areas that we have calculated as having fewer than 4.5 years of land supply, the proportion of local authorities increases to 61 per cent.

Of those claiming a sufficient level of land supply, 17 per cent were found to have fewer than 5.5 years based on our calculation. This does not question the deliverability of sites, but instead compares published supply with the most accurate housing need figure. For local authorities without an up-to-date Local Plan, we have used the Standard Method for assessing local housing need.

The share of local authorities with both below 4.5 years of land supply and without an up-to-date Local Plan stands at 16 per cent. Between them, these local authorities have a Standard Method housing need of 49,000.

These local authorities also typically perform poorly against the Government's Housing Delivery Test; and while the official results of last year's test have not yet been published, our analysis suggests that 33 per cent of authorities with insufficient land supply will face the most severe sanction of the test under the 2021 measurement.

As 2022 gets into full swing we await to see what the official results reveal and what else will emerge to help shape plans for England this year.