The Planning Inspectorate has now issued a report concerning Dorset Council’s 5 Year Housing Land Supply Annual Position Statement 2024. The recommendation provided to the Council is that the Council’s draft Annual Position Statement (APS) dated 31 July 2024 can demonstrate a 5 year supply of deliverable housing sites, subject to the removal of 537 dwellings from its draft supply list.
The planning inspector concluded that the total deliverable supply is 8,999 dwellings against a requirement of 8,965 dwellings. This results in a housing land supply of 5.02 years. As a consequence, the Council is now entitled to rely on the supply as shown in the draft APS (subject to the discount of 537 dwelling revisions) until 31 October 2025.
On the assumption that the Council adopt the recommendations, this means that the Dorset Council cannot have its five-year deliverable housing land position challenged at either application or appeal until after 31st October 2025.
Andy England (Associate Director) advised ‘the timing of the report in relation to the Government’s proposed reforms to the National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF) and other changes to the planning system, is fascinating, especially given that the Government indicated that they were proposing to remove the option for local planning authorities to ‘fix’ their 5-year housing land supply through Annual Position Statements. It will therefore be interesting to see how the reforms to NPPF are worded with regard to an APS which has been published in advance and whether it will be afforded any protection. Unfortunately, on the face of it the acceptance of the APS is likely to supress housing delivery for a year, leading to even greater deficit relative to the revised standard method in years to come.’
