A Kent council which failed to meet housing targets has been forced to create a plan to get back on track - but now faces even higher targets.
Medway Council has fallen short of the housebuilding quota imposed by central government and must now address the shortfall, as well as provide an extra 20% on top.
It comes as a new report, presented to the authority’s cabinet on Tuesday (June 11), detailed how, between 2019 and 2022, 874 fewer homes than the 4246 target were built.
The government introduced the Housing Delivery Test in 2018 through the National Planning Policy Framework.
It measures the amount of housing completed against the number of homes that are required for an area, over the preceding three years.
The new rules also set out certain penalties depending on how significantly a local council has missed its housing targets.
Medway’s figure of only reaching 79% of their goal over the three-year period means they now have to produce an action plan to catch up on the missed allocation, and will also have an extra 20% added to their target.
It means the council’s target for building new homes will go from 1658 to 1990 this year in order to reach the government’s national goal of 30,000 new homes every year.
Medway managed to avoid the further penalty which would’ve come into effect had the number of houses delivered dropped below 75% of the target.
This would have loosened planning considerations to find in favour of sustainable development - which in practice means there would be fewer reasons available to reject applications for new homes.
The reasons given for the under-performance included rises in inflation, supply chain issues, difficulties in retaining planning department staff, and the continuing rise in house prices which are making them unaffordable for many.
But the council says the blame cannot be laid squarely at its door.
The delivery of housing isn’t just down to the council - developers need to deliver too
It points to nearly 8000 homes it has approved which are currently in the hands of developers who just haven’t built them yet.
The report also outlines that the council’s delivery rate in comparison to the targets will get worse before it gets better, dipping below the 75% mark in 2023 and 2024, before increasing to 83% in 2026.
The action plan sets out how the local authority intends to get closer to delivering the government’s targets, with much coming down to the implementation of the local plan currently being developed.
It also set out that the council would explore management processes and create an empty homes strategy which would attempt to bring vacant properties onto the market to alleviate pressure for housing.
At the cabinet meeting, Medway’s portfolio holder for climate change and strategic regeneration, Cllr Simon Curry (Lab), said: “Bizarrely they add on an extra 20% if you go below 80%, which I don’t understand - it makes it more difficult when you’re already struggling.
“The delivery of housing isn’t just down to the council; we are responsible for the planning process, for assessing all the needs for housing and looking at infrastructure and making the decisions and then it’s down to the housing companies to deliver.
“If the market’s not right or there’s not materials or they can’t find the workforce or the viability isn’t right, all those factors which affect the building industry across the whole country, if they don’t come together then it affects the delivery rate of housing.
“That’s basically what’s happened, not just here in Medway but across the whole country.”
Cllr Curry said the local authority’s local plan was the “most important factor” moving forward.
“If we can get a local plan in place then we will have an opportunity to fully deliver our housing needs,” he added.
The authority’s portfolio holder for housing and property, Cllr Naushabah Khan (Lab) supported the proposals.
She said: “There is a lot in this action plan which starts to address how we meet those targets and it’s been really well thought out.
“But there is an over-reliance on the market, and one of the things we need to start thinking about is how we can create some self-sufficiency in Medway.
“We do need to think about how we create those local supply chains - it might not be something we can deliver through this particular action plan, but going forward it’s something we should be championing, otherwise we will always have this reliance on external factors.”
The report was supported unanimously by the cabinet.
Medway’s local plan is currently under development and will be put out for a second round of consultation this summer.
Cllr Naushabah Khan is standing for election in Gillingham and Rainham for the Labour Party.
Other candidates include: Rehman Chisti (Conservatives), Stuart Bourne (Lib Dems), Kate Belmonte (Greens), Peter Wheeler (Social Democratic Party), Rizvi Rawoof (Reform UK), Peter Cook (Independent), Roger Peacock (Christian People’s Alliance).
