Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:

To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, whether he has plans to relax the requirement on local planning authorities to meet their five year housing land supply in line with the postponement of local plan inspections during the covid-19 outbreak.

It is important to keep the planning system moving as much as we can, so that it is able to play its full part in the economic recovery to come. We note the concerns some authorities are raising on 5 year housing land supply and we will continue to monitor the situation.

On 13 May the Secretary of State announced measures to further support house building. This included: allowing more flexible working hours on construction sites which will support these sites in meeting social distancing requirements; a statement that site visits and the use of digital technology and virtual meetings should become the norm in planning casework by mid-June; and introducing a range of temporary measures to make it easier to operate the planning system, especially the development management process, within the current public health guidelines. More information is available here: https://www.gov.uk/guidance/coronavirus-covid-19-planning-update