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It takes on average 7 years for an authority to adopt a Local Plan. But in the meantime, there is a very real housing crisis. When people need homes now, it is unreasonable to make them wait for a new local plan to come into effect if there are sites that are suitable for development immediately.
Back in 2011, Government therefore introduced a requirement for Councils to have enough sites ready for development to meet their housing need for the next five years. That is what is meant by a ‘five-year housing land supply’.
In the last recession, house building dipped, and many authorities Local Plans were not sufficiently flexible to allow sites to come forward and hence many authorities could not demonstrate a five year land supply. This means that, in some locations, it was possible to secure planning permission for new homes on land which was not allocated or where there was no support from the council.
