Buckinghamshire Local Plan Watch - Autumn 2022

Buckinghamshire Council also published its Five Year Housing Land Supply Position Statements in April 2022, for the period 2022-2027. These are based on the former district areas and identified the 5YHLS positions:

• Aylesbury Vale = 5.2 years;
• Chiltern = 2.1 years;
• South Bucks = 2.7 years;
• and Wycombe = 6.5 years

Milton Keynes (128%) and Buckinghamshire (107%) perform well against the Housing Delivery Test (HDT) 2021 Results published in January 2022.
There are also likely to be limited short-term opportunities in the southern part of the County where Green Belt generally trumps a deficit in housing land supply. However, as we’ve seen in neighbouring Hertfordshire at Colney Heath, there could be potential opportunities where there is significant lack of a supply of housing.

The limited buffer in Aylesbury’s supply indicates that there may be emerging opportunities should the delivery of identified sites start to slip. The ‘minimum’ five year requirement also suggests that irrespective of any slippage, the Council may need to take a proactive approach to approving unallocated development to ensure the supply of sites is maintained at a healthy level.

It is worth noting that that from April 2025, under the Guidance in the current National Planning Practice Guidance (reference ID: 68-025-20190722), the housing policies of the former district plans will not be able to be relied upon and the Local Housing Need figure for Buckinghamshire will form the basis of the land supply calculation. Unless the Strategic Plan has progressed, and additional land allocated, this may impact on the overall five year and supply figure, and place additional pressure on those less constrained areas of the County.