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

To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, what assessment he has made of the level of consistency in the way five-year housing supply is calculated by developers and local authorities.

National planning policy requires local planning authorities to identify and update annually a supply of specific deliverable sites to provide five years worth of housing against their housing requirement.

They must also provide an additional buffer of 5% (or 20% where there has been a record of persistent under delivery of housing). The National Planning Policy Framework and planning guidance provide clear advice on what is meant by a deliverable site. Establishing which sites are deliverable can only be achieved at a local level and in the light of the specific circumstances that apply to each individual site.