Housing Land Audit: guidance

Methodology

Frequency

35. In line with NPF4, the majority of planning authorities should prepare and publish a HLA annually.

36. There is flexibility for island and more rural authorities to implement an approach more tailored to their specific needs, reflecting each authority’s individual housing delivery models. This could include a formal HLA being published every two years with an interim report on alternate years to provide an update on the housing land delivery position.

Base date

37. The HLA provides a snapshot picture in time of the housing land position on a particular date. To support a consistent evidence base for monitoring housing delivery across Scotland, all HLAs should have a base date of 31 March, with the audit year running from 1 April to 31 March.

Sites to be included

38. Sites to be included within the HLA are:

• All sites allocated within an adopted LDP.
• All sites with an extant planning permission for new homes, including sites with planning permission in principle (PPiP).
• All sites under construction.
• Sites within a local authority’s most recent Strategic Housing Investment Plan (SHIP) only where the site has planning permission, and / or specific funding is committed indicating deliverability.

39. Sites which should not be included in the HLA are:

• Sites within a proposed LDP, given the uncertainty at this stage in the plan making process as it is still subject to change through the Examination process.
• Sites not allocated in an LDP with a Minded to Grant / Notice of Intent, given planning permission is still to be confirmed.
• Any sites from an Urban Capacity Study carried out by a planning authority, as these should inform the preparation of the LDP.
• Care homes, student accommodation, hotel/hostel and B&B use (including uses within Class 7 and Class 8 of the Town and Country Planning (Use Classes) (Scotland) Order 1997), as they provide for specialist uses.

Completions

40. The HLA should provide a snapshot of the number of homes completed within the audit year. This should be the number of homes completed for each site during the year 1 April to 31 March, and the total for the year for the authority. It would be helpful to include historic annual completions to allow comparison from year to year.

41. This guidance promotes consistency of approach across Scotland. For the purposes of HLA, a completion is defined as a house or flat which is built and is capable of being occupied. For the avoidance of doubt, the audit is not calculating occupied homes, but rather the number of completed homes which are ready for occupation, whether they are in fact occupied or not.

42. For consistency, completions should be calculated using completions certificate data from the local authority Building Standards service as the main source of data collection. Authorities may regard the issue of a temporary completion certificate as signifying completion for the purposes of the HLA, provided that the home is not counted again when a final completion certificate is issued.

43. There is flexibility for the planning authority to undertake additional data checking to improve robustness of information and corroborate completion calculations, should they consider this to be beneficial. It may include removing the double counting of replacement houses; seeking feedback from developers; visual inspections carried out by the planning authority; or, reviews of council tax data.

44. The emphasis should be on the robustness of the data collected. Proportionality will also be important given potential resource implications.

45. The HLA Report should, for transparency, detail how completions have been calculated, together with justification of the methodology.

46. Where demolitions have been addressed as part of preparing the LDP, these do not need to be reflected in the HLA. For smaller scale demolition, completions should be shown net of demolitions.

Programming: Deliverable and Deliverable with Constraints Sites

47. This guidance seeks to achieve a consistent approach to programming within HLAs. The HLA should as a minimum provide a snapshot of the future delivery of homes over 10 years from the base date of the audit. Authorities may consider additional years beyond that if appropriate.

48. NPF4 places an emphasis on delivery, therefore the HLA should programme sites where there is confidence in delivery having considered the deliverability factors at paragraphs 64-67. It is acknowledged that build out of sites may change and that earlier years of programming will be more accurate.

49. Whilst it is not possible to achieve complete accuracy, effort should be made to ensure programming is realistic and robust, and under or over inflation of estimated delivery should be avoided. This can be achieved through a collaborative approach (see paragraphs 67 to 70), working in partnership with relevant parties to take account of evidence from stakeholders, any issues raised, and trends for delivery rates for the particular house type and area.

50. Where detailed programming is not available, planning authorities may consider using general assumptions / estimates for when a site can reasonably be expected to deliver. When used, this should be explained in the HLA Report and they should be regularly reviewed for their appropriateness.

51. The HLA schedule should include programming for sites that make up the deliverable housing land pipeline and count towards the LHLR: the ‘deliverable’ and ‘deliverable with constraints’ sites, over a 10 year period from the base date of the audit. ‘Deliverable’ sites are those which are free from constraints. ‘Deliverable with constraints’ sites are those where there is one or more constraint and there is a commitment to overcoming constraints and delivery is possible in the period identified in the pipeline. The constraints should relate to the deliverability factors set out in paragraphs 64-67 of this guidance.

52. To support delivery of homes and provide linkages with the LDP Delivery Programme, the HLA Schedule should as a minimum include information of the next action required to deliver each site, as below. The planning authority may determine its own additional factors. For each action an owner should be identified, for example, land owner, developers, planning authority, infrastructure provider etc. More detailed action information may be more relevant for the Delivery Programme to avoid duplication.

• Releasing the site from the existing land use.
• Securing a developer.
• Submitting a Proposal of Application Notice / undertaking Pre-Application Consultation.
• Submitting a planning application (full PP, PPP or AMSC).
• Determining a planning application.
• Securing non-planning consents.
• Concluding a planning agreement.
• Discharging pre-commencement planning conditions.
• Commencing construction.
• Increasing rate of delivery.
• Information on action to remove constraints, for example timescales for any infrastructure works, mitigation or site works.

Constrained, Undeliverable and Removed Sites

Constrained Sites

53. Constrained sites are those where there is one or more factors constraining delivery and where there is no current commitment to overcoming these constraints. Sites which are ‘constrained’ will not count towards meeting the LHLR, until such time as circumstances change and they can be included in the HLA as ‘deliverable’ or ‘deliverable with constraints’.

54. For each constrained site, detail of the constraint should be identified. Where possible, the action required to overcome the constraint(s) and deliver the site should be identified.

Undeliverable Sites

55. Undeliverable sites are those considered incapable of becoming deliverable. Their inclusion is a flag for possible deallocation from the LDP at the next plan amendment or review and removal from the HLA.

Removed Sites

56. A site will be ‘removed’ from the HLA when delivery has completed. It is also appropriate to ‘remove’ sites where they are not allocated for housing within an adopted LDP and are not under construction and planning permission has lapsed during the audit year. Local reasons for sites being removed should be outlined in the HLA spreadsheet.

Small Sites

57. The HLA should include both completions and programming information for small sites. To ensure consistency, a threshold of 4 units should apply, meaning that developments of 1-3 homes are considered small sites. Developments of 4 or more homes are not considered small sites for the purposes of the HLA, and should therefore be included in the HLA in full, with timescales for delivery programmed out.

58. The HLA Report should set out the methodology used to calculate completions and programming of small sites. Completions on small sites count towards meeting the LHLR.

59. Given the nature of housing delivery in island and some rural areas, where there is likely to be a significant number of small sites, flexibility in approach to small sites for the HLA may be appropriate, as determined by the planning authority.

Small Site Completions

60. The planning authority may choose to present small site completions in one of two ways:

• Completions can be set out in full, with each site listed in the HLA Schedule; or
• Completions can be included in the HLA Schedule as an aggregate number. If an aggregate number is to be used, this should be an accurate reflection of the number of completions on small sites for that year, not based on any assumption.

61. As with completions on any other housing site, the methodology for the calculation of small site completions should primarily focus on completion certificate data, supplemented by other forms of data collection such as information from developers, visual inspections and / or council tax data, as deemed necessary by the planning authority.

Small Site Programming

62. The planning authority may choose to present small site programming in one of two ways:

• Programming can be set out in full, with each site listed in the HLA Schedule; or
• Programming can be included in the HLA Schedule as an aggregate number of estimated delivery from small sites for each year. If an aggregate number is to be used this may be calculated in one of two ways:
  • The number of homes programmed to be delivered each year on small sites may be added together to form an aggregate number which will be set out within the HLA Schedule; or
  • The number may be based on an assumption of the number of homes that will come forward each year from small sites.

63. If an assumption of programming is to be used, this should be based on sound evidence of past trends. An average of the last 5 years of actual completions on small sites should be used. The assumption should not focus on a more arbitrary percentage estimate of the level of small site permissions that can be delivered over the audit period. The assumption should be considered and updated each year, and not roll forward without being amended to reflect the most up to date evidence of past trends.