More New Housing including Social Rents

New figures show Bath & North East Somerset Council is exceeding the targets set in its Local Plan to deliver new homes for residents. In the past three years 3,100 new homes, including 700 affordable homes have been built across the district. The figures are revealed in the Government’s annual Housing Delivery Test (HDT) which assesses whether the number of houses built meet the district’s housing needs identified in the Local Plan. Across Bath and North East Somerset 184% of the required new housing has been delivered, almost double the target set in the Local Plan Councillor Tim Ball, cabinet member for Planning said: “This is great news for residents as it shows we’re delivering on our commitment to address the housing crisis and meet housing needs across the district. It highlights the importance of having an up-to-date Local Plan in place with sites allocated for new housing and shows just how well our Planning team is performing determining applications quickly and efficiently.” Councillor Tom Davies, cabinet member for Adults and Council House Building, added: “Having confirmation that we are exceeding the Housing Delivery Test target is great news but we know we still need to do more. This year we’re on course to deliver even more affordable homes as we begin our first council house building programme for a generation to provide much-needed social homes for rent to meet demand.” It is important that the council performs well in the Housing Delivery Test and can demonstrate it has enough land supply to meet housing needs for the next five years to ensure it remains in control of housing development across the district. If the council cannot meet the Housing Delivery Test the government can place sanctions on it to try to facilitate housing delivery. That can mean a council is forced to grant permission for housing developments unless there is substantial harm that demonstrably outweighs the benefits of providing more housing. In reality that means the council loses control over the location of new housing and becomes more vulnerable to speculative applications in less sustainable areas.