Mandatory housing targets are back – are you ready? 

Councils will have noticed the recent announcements by the new Government of the return of mandatory housing targets for each local authority area. 

Councils across the country will now be planning for the delivery of 370,000 homes annually, instead of the previous estimates – on an advisory basis – of 305,000 homes per year. Failing to achieve these targets is likely to result in councils being unable to manage or control new housing developments in their areas. 

However, with new starts expected to dip below 200,000 this year, and with many councils and housing associations downscaling their own development programmes owing to increased costs and rent uncertainty, this will be very challenging for local government. 

Throughout England and Wales, Local Partnerships has been working with councils and combined authorities to help boost housing delivery across their areas. This includes: 

• Technical support to councils to enable them to identify, filter, prioritise, and develop sites for new homes (which will be particularly important under the new Government policies around ‘Grey Belt’ development) 

• Identifying and addressing the reasons for stalled sites (especially important in order to meet ‘brownfield first’ policies). This includes deep dives with developers, stakeholders and statutory agencies around nutrient neutrality issues, or indeed any other impediment to delivery 

• Options appraisals for direct delivery programmes. This includes assisting councils to reopen their Housing Revenue Accounts, joining the 200 or so councils who have established housing delivery vehicles, or reviewing progress to date. We are able to help councils using our Housing Delivery Vehicle Toolkit 

• Helping councils boost SME development, with support in providing a fast-track route to getting SMEs working on building sites, while increasing the supply of social and affordable rented homes 

The ability to prepare for and meet these targets will not be achieved through any organisation working alone. Identifying the right combination of policy levers to pull and developing the strategic partnerships to enable these interventions to be delivered successfully will be key, as will ensuring that each council really understands the housing dynamics in their areas. 

Take a look at the free resources on our website including: our Temporary Accommodation Model, our updated Housing Delivery Vehicle Toolkit, our Prioritising Housing Pipelines Tool, or Considerations in Reopening Housing Revenue Accounts 

Temporary Accommodation Model

Housing Delivery Vehicle Toolkit

Prioritising Housing Pipelines Tool

Considerations in Reopening Housing Revenue Accounts

Please get in touch with me, Martin Walker, for a confidential discussion about these issues to find out more about how we can support you martin.walker@loclpartnerships.gov.uk or look at our Housing web pages.