Housing land supply

The Government’s National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF) requires all local authorities to maintain a housing land supply of at least five years to ensure there is a sufficient pipeline of land to meet housing targets.

The NPPF requires that the Council’s housing land supply figure includes an appropriate buffer to take account of sites that might not come forward. Due to Southampton’s performance in the most recent Housing Delivery Test that buffer is currently set at 20%.

The council is currently working on a new Strategic Land Availability Assessment (SLAA) which will help identify sites across the city which have the potential to be developed for housing and/or employment use within the local plan period (to 2041). The results of the SLAA, once complete, will inform an updated Five Year Housing Land Supply Position Statement. The statement will be published on this page in due course.