Issue - meetings

Background:

This report set out Medway’s proposed Housing Delivery Test Action Plan (HDTAP), which was attached as Appendix 1 to the report. It had been prepared in response to the publication of the Housing Delivery Test results published in December 2023.

The report outlined the purpose of the document, rates of housing delivery in Medway and advised on implications for Medway Council. Approval was sought to publish the Action Plan which was required to take place during June 2024 to meet government requirements.

The report explained that the Test compared the net number of homes delivered over the preceding three years to the housing requirement for the same period. The 2022 HDT measurement published in December 2023 had given Medway a result of 79% delivery (3,372 homes compared to a requirement of 4,246) against its defined level of housing need, based on the government’s standard method formula, covering the period from April 2019 to March 2022.

The adoption of a new Medway Local Plan was seen as the main measure the Council could take to boost the supply of housing, with new allocations to deliver the area’s sustainable growth.

Reasons:

The Housing Delivery Test is a measure of the number of homes delivered within a three-year period compared with the defined local housing need. Anything below 95% means a Council would have to produce an action plan within six months of the test’s publication. The 2022 Housing Delivery Test was published in December 2023, so the Council was required to publish the action plan in June 2024.