Setting a housing target

To support the Government’s objective of significantly boosting the supply of homes, the National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF) sets out the requirements for working out how many new homes should be planned for during the life of the local plan. It says:

“To determine the minimum number of homes needed, strategic policies should be informed by a local housing need assessment, conducted using the standard method in national planning practice guidance. In addition to the local housing need figure, any needs that cannot be met within neighbouring areas should also be taken into account in establishing the amount of housing to be planned for.”

We therefore need to set an appropriate target for the number of new homes to be built in Tamworth up to the year 2043.

Updated options

Since the Issues and Options consultation was published in 2022, there have been a number of changes to national planning policy and we have also been collecting evidence to help us determine what the right housing need figure for the plan might be. The potential options and our new proposed approach are set out below.

Summary and proposed approach

As set out above, the December 2024 update to the National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF) included a new standard method, which significantly increased the calculated need from the point of the issues and options consultation, and retained the requirement for the standard method to form the basis of any housing need calculation.

Whilst acknowledging that the standard method should be the basis for establishing the housing need for the plan, the Housing and Economic Development Needs Assessment (HEDNA) concluded that the figure would lead to a significant increase in the borough’s population which would require significantly more economic growth to support than is currently anticipated to take place. The HEDNA suggested a minimum figure that would be required to support the anticipated level of economic growth that is lower than the standard method figure.

Despite the HEDNA evidence suggesting a lower need figure would be appropriate, national planning policy requires us to use the standard method figure as the starting point for setting our housing need. We therefore propose to take the figure of 8,608 as the starting point.

As set out above, there is no evidence to suggest that a higher figure is needed to allow for economic growth. Given the borough’s previous unmet housing need, and the lack of suitable available sites to meet our own needs this time, we do not propose to increase our housing target to help with the delivery of unmet need from neighbouring areas either.

Taking into account new homes that have already been built since April 2022 and the likely number of windfall homes that will be built before 2043 leaves a housing target of 6,994 new homes to plan for in the new local plan. This number will be reduced slightly by the new homes that have been built from April 2025 to now that have not been included in this calculation.