Concept for - 5 Year Housing Land Supply Plus 20% Buffer

From 1st July 2026, the 5 Year Housing Land Supply plus the 20% buffer (referred to by some as the “6 Year Housing Land Supply”) came into effect following its introduction in paragraph 78(c) of the December 2024 National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF).

This buffer is now triggered when:

  1. an authority’s housing requirement was adopted within the last five years under a pre-December 2024 version of the NPPF; or
  2. the local plan housing requirement is more than five years old and the relevant strategic policies have been reviewed and found not to require updating
  3. and its annual average housing requirement is less than 80% of the most up-to-date local housing need figure.

In these instances, the authority must now demonstrate a 5 Year Housing Land Supply plus a 20% buffer. Adding this 20% buffer, this will mean that some authorities will now be unable to demonstrate a five year supply of deliverable housing sites (with the appropriate buffer) – and the ‘tilted balance’ will apply.

For those authorities that already could not demonstrate a 5 Year Housing Land Supply, the target has got even further out of reach (and according to some appeals, the need to approve housing has got even greater).

Hence, for developers, this shortfall in housing land supply can allow for more opportunities to bring forward sites that help the delivery of new homes to meet the assessed need.

Looking Ahead

The introduction of the 20% buffer represents a significant change in housing land supply.

For local authorities, it creates additional pressure to identify and maintain the delivery of housing sites. For developers and landowners, it may create opportunities to promote sites that can contribute towards meeting identified housing needs (unless the policies in the NPPF that protect areas or assets of particular importance provide a strong reason for refusing the development proposed, or the adverse impacts of approving the development would significantly and demonstrably outweigh the benefits, when assessed against the policies in the NPPF taken as a whole).

Please contact our Planning team if you wish to discuss anything in the above article.