Lincolnshire councils ahead of the game in housing delivery

Greater Lincolnshire’s councils are ahead of the game when it comes to delivering housing according to the latest data from government.
PlanningPlanning
Planning

The Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities’ annual Housing Delivery Test shows that the seven district councils, along with North and North East Lincolnshire Council, have built 13,304 homes – 49.08% higher than the 8,924 they were estimated to require between 2018 and 2021.

The City of Lincoln, North Kesteven and West Lindsey District Councils have a joint plan and have delivered 4,925 homes compared to the 2,810 they required. A rise of 75%.

Meanwhile the most advanced authority was South Holland District Council which has delivered 76% more homes than it required.

South Kesteven, despite being the lowest of the Greater Lincolnshire authorities still managed to beat its target by 10%, building 1,851 homes against a requirement of 1,678.

North East Lincolnshire built 61% extra houses, while North Lincolnshire built 13% more than they needed.

Elsewhere in the country, 51 (16%) of the 320 local planning authorities tracked by the government face sanctions after failing to deliver at least 75% of the homes needed in their area over the past three years.

The Housing Delivery Test was introduced in 2018 in order to track whether councils were meeting local housing needs and help hit a target of 300,000 new homes by the mid-2020s.

It uses local housing need, along with projected average annual household growth, adjustments for affordability and local plans to formulate the required number of homes.

Those that do not meet the target can be forced into a “presumption in favour of sustainable development” position which enables developments to be approved unless adverse impacts “significantly and demonstrably” outweigh the benefits.