With PPS3 maintaining the need for local planning authorities to demonstrate a deliverable five year supply of housing land and the absence of up-to-date development plans, many applications for housing are considering whether the local planning authority in question, can demonstrate such a supply.

Whilst the principles for assessing ‘deliverable’ supply are well established, the Coalition Government’s Localism Bill proposal to remove ‘undemocratic’ regional spatial strategies from the development plan caused a great deal of uncertainty in determining the relevant housing requirements.

With legal debate on the weight to be given to that proposal still running it is interesting to note some of the decisions taken by the Secretary of State and the Inspectorate to date.

The early decisions of the Secretary of State at the time when regional strategies were ‘revoked’, established that where the development plan did not cover the relevant five year period, and an alternative housing figure had not been tested, a requirement could not be established and therefore, a demonstrable supply could not be demonstrated and housing applications would be considered favourably as set out in PPS3.

Since the decision of the courts to ‘re-instate’ regional strategies and the statement that their revocation was a ‘material consideration’, the Secretary of State has given his statement ‘little or no weight’ in determining called-in and recovered applications due to the Localism Bill’s early stage in the parliamentary process.

The Planning Inspectorate, in considering these issues in circumstances where the regional strategy evidence supported higher housing numbers and the development plan is out of date, has taken PPS3’s requirements to meet the needs of the local population and the availability of tested evidence base as the basis for establishing a requirement.

Until such time as the ‘presumption in favour of sustainable development’ is established, and alternative housing requirements are tested through examination, there will continue to be a need to carefully consider the basis for establishing a housing requirement to support residential applications.

Hunter Page Planning Ltd. regularly monitors decisions by the Secretary of State and the Planning Inspectorate and has successfully demonstrated the lack of deliverable five year land supply, including at appeal.