When Housing Targets meet Environmental Constraints

The Government plans to fix the housing shortage by imposing annual housebuilding targets on local authorities in England – initially by tweaking the current Standard Method, but then later going on to more directly set targets nationally. These would need to take account of environmental constraints such as National Parks. I’ve taken a look at how this could be done.

Housing Targets – new approach

Alongside today’s planning reform consultation is a separate consultation on a proposed new approach to setting house building targets. It would raise the overall target for England to 337,000 new homes a year (from a notional target of 300,000, and actual delivery of 241,000 in 2018/19). It would also mean big changes in targets (up or down) for many local areas.