Mandatory housing targets for many rural local authorities have recently increased sharply. The pressure on such councils to give permission for green-field sites has increased too. Meanwhile the Local Plan remains at the heart of the NPPF but our question is this: will large-scale ‘strategic’ housing still need to go through the Local Plan process or will developers be able to ‘bypass’ Local Plan production in a rush for housing numbers? And if so, how will the right locations to build be chosen with sustainable transport in mind?
The Local Plan
The Local Plan is a definitive plan for a Local Planning Authority area that lasts 15 years. It carefully allocates land for ‘strategic housing’ to meet the government targets given in the right places, with an evidenced approach regarding economy, environment, community and transport. The Local Plan is, in theory, a great opportunity to actually combine land-use with better sustainable transport infrastructure.
Stages in Local Plan production
The Local Plan process is necessarily thorough. After an initial call for sites to developers with land to offer for housing, planners get to work commissioning economic, community and other evidence and begin to draft the Plan with respect to development. This Plan contains many policies both general and specific to places, and goes through a number of stages of public consultation including testing of different options for where and how to build.
Danger of a delayed Local Plan
But what happens if a local authority is suddenly given a much higher target by government to deliver new homes, and the Local Plan hasn’t yet caught up? Or, what happens if the Local Plan is delayed by lack of council resources, national policy changes or because the area has only recently become a single unitary authority where previously there were Districts?
Delayed Local Plans are very common, as is a lack of the critical five year housing land supply – see for example Lichfields Consultants blog Timed Out? and in an article by Urbanist Architecture (May 2025)
The Planning and Compulsory Purchase Act 2004 directs Local Planning Authorities to determine planning applications in accordance with the policies of the Local Plan unless ‘material considerations’ indicate otherwise. The situation is complex to say the least but it seems that if the Local Plan is delayed and there is not enough land allocated for five years’ worth of housing targets, developers are in an especially good position.
Housing numbers game
If a Local Plan is due for a refresh and the new one delayed, developers can point to the Housing Delivery Test which is an annual measurement of housing delivery in the Local Plan area and the five year housing land supply which is much to the point. This relates to the adequate supply of specific sites to meet the planned housing requirement over the next five years. Planning Resource supplies a useful list of the authorities that have lost or gained a five-year housing land supply position since the last update, and the authorities with the most marginal positions.
Tilted balance
Under the circumstances of a lack of a five year housing land supply, the ’tilted balance’ may likely apply in deciding whether or not to grant planning permission for a housing development. The test is whether the impacts of the development ‘significantly and demonstrably’ outweigh the benefits of granting permission. The tilted balance ‘tilts’ the balance in favour of approving an application even if it’s not in the Local Plan.
Permission although not in the Plan?
We have recently seen sites 50 to 300 new homes given permission on greenfield sites that are not in the Local Plan – places we thought quite unsuitable for sustainable transport. These are given the go-ahead on the basis that the five year housing land supply is known to be low, and cash-strapped councils feel they can’t afford the cost of an appeal. But what about really large and complex housing proposals on greenfield land? Can they, under such conditions, circumnavigate the Local Plan too?
1,700 homes as a departure from the adopted Local Plan
The Selwood ‘Garden Community’ (styled as such but not actually one of official garden communities) went before the relevant Somerset council planning committee late 2024.
The Committee refused the application for 1,700 homes in countryside near Frome on transport, environmental and community grounds, as well as its great unpopularity with the town. The ‘garden community’ was not in the Local Plan, which had been delayed for reasons including the formation of a new unitary council and problems with phosphate levels. The development would, we heard, be the second largest housing site in Somerset (after one at Taunton).
In February 2025 the Selwood Garden Community was called in by the Secretary of State.
Secretary of State to determine application
The public inquiry took place in August 2025 and is due to report later this year. Somerset council decided to be ‘neutral’ because of the potential costs of participating. Meanwhile the Somerset Local Plan – the first county wide local plan following the recent abolition of the individual Somerset districts – is in active preparation ,with public consultation on the first draft expected Spring 2026.
Test case
If the developer wins and outline permission is conceded for a very large site that has not been through the Local Plan process, it will be surely be a first. The evidenced consideration of where to build in a large Local Planning Authority area, and the procedure for consulting on options will not have taken place, including the question of public transport provision or the best locations with respect to walking and cycling, and of course, jobs.
We wonder whether perhaps the notion of plan-making at the heart of the NPPF is diminishing. Does ‘build, build, build’ does indeed mean less of professional and evidence-based planning at local level, and the increasingly dominance of the housing numbers games. Let’s hope not. We will find out.
