Introduction
On Tuesday 19 February 2019, the Government published the inaugural Housing Delivery Test (HDT) results after a three-month delay.
What is the HDT?
The HDT is an annual measurement of housing delivery in the area of relevant plan-making authorities, which includes non-metropolitan districts, metropolitan boroughs, London boroughs and development corporations with plan-making and decision-making powers. The HDT does not apply to National Park Authorities, the Broads Authority or to development corporations without full plan-making and planning decision making powers.
The HDT sets out the percentage of net new homes that have been delivered in a local authority area when measured against that authority’s housing requirement, over a rolling three year period. It utilises authorities’ housing requirements that are less than five years old. In the event that the requirement within a Local Plan or Joint Local Plan is more than five years old, the Standardised Method figure will be used (with the base date for the calculation of 1 April) and with the application of the affordability ratio, unless the strategic policies have been reviewed and found that it does not require updating.
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