Annual Monitoring Report including 5-Year Housing Land Supply

Greater Cambridge Housing Trajectory and 5-Year Housing Land Supply calculations (1 April 2020)

A housing trajectory is used by Councils to calculate their 5-year housing land supply and also to demonstrate that anticipated housing delivery will meet or exceed their housing requirement.

Together with Cambridge City Council, we have reviewed and updated the Greater Cambridge housing trajectory and 5-year housing land supply calculations. The updated housing trajectory has been prepared jointly for Greater Cambridge, consistent with the approach set out in the adopted Local Plans 2018. Greater Cambridge consists of the local planning authorities of us and Cambridge City Council.

The update concludes that we jointly have 5.4 years of housing land supply for the 2020-2025 5-year period. This conclusion is based on our 5-year housing land supply being calculated jointly, using the Liverpool methodology, and applying a 20% buffer, all of which are set out in the adopted Local Plans 2018.

Greater Cambridge Housing Trajectory and 5-Year Housing Land Supply (1 April 2020) [PDF, 6.5MB] and Errata [PDF, 10Kb]

As we can demonstrate a 5-year housing land supply for Greater Cambridge, the planning policies in the adopted Cambridge and South Cambridgeshire Local Plans 2018 will be given full weight in decisions on planning applications, unless there are other material considerations to take into account. This will be relevant for any planning applications that are being considered from 1 April 2020.

The commentary included in the Greater Cambridge Housing Trajectory and 5-Year Housing Land Supply (1 April 2020) document refers to information published in the Greater Cambridge Housing Trajectory and 5-Year Housing Land Supply (November 2019):

• Main Document [PDF, 8MB] (November 2019) and Errata [PDF, 0.1MB]
• Annex (November 2019):
• Contents, Notes and A1. Evidence of Lead-In Times, Lapse Rates, Build Out Rates and Windfalls [PDF, 1.5MB]
• A2. Completed Questionnaires and Emails, and Responses C1 to C40 [PDF, 7MB]
• Responses GC1 to GC19 [PDF, 2MB]
• Responses SC1 to SC43 [PDF, 9.5MB]
• Responses SC44 to SC86 [PDF, 6.5MB]

Housing Delivery Test

The Housing Delivery Test (HDT) is an annual assessment of actual housing delivery over the previous three years against the housing requirement for the district for that same period. It was introduced in 2018, and national planning policy and guidance sets out the consequences of different results of the Housing Delivery Test. [PDF, 3MB]

The latest set of HDT results were published in February 2020. The result for Cambridge is 280%. The result for South Cambridgeshire is 95%.

There were no consequences found from the HDT results published in February 2020 for Cambridge or South Cambridgeshire.

Annual Monitoring Reports

Greater Cambridge Authority Monitoring Report 2018-2019 (August 2020) [PDF, 0.4MB]

Appendix 1 [PDF, 0.6MB]

Appendix 2 [PDF, 1MB]

What is an Authority Monitoring Report?

Monitoring is essential to establish what has been happening in Greater Cambridge, what is happening now, what may happen in the future, and what needs to be done to achieve policies and targets.

Councils produce an Authority Monitoring Report every year, which reports on the previous monitoring year from 1 April to 31 March. It contains information about the performance of planning policies set out in the adopted Local Plan and Area Action Plans, and also provides a general portrait of social, economic and environmental conditions in the city. The Authority Monitoring Report also assesses the council’s progress in producing its Local Plan and Area Action Plans against the timetable set out in the Local Development Scheme. The annual publication of an Authority Monitoring Report (AMR) is a statutory requirement for all Local Authorities.

About the 2018-2019 Authority Monitoring Report

The 2018-2019 Authority Monitoring Report is the first to cover the whole of Greater Cambridge. Individual Authority Monitoring Reports (formerly Annual Monitoring Report, AMRs) have been produced for South Cambridgeshire and Cambridge City in the past. Both Councils’ Local Plans were adopted halfway through the 2018/19 monitoring year, which means that some of the indicators, especially those which relate to the application of new policies in the plans, have only been implemented for half of the monitoring year.

The Greater Cambridge AMR covers the period from 1 April 2018 to 31 March 2019.