What is the five year housing supply?
To support the Government's objective of significantly boosting the supply of homes, the National Planning Policy Framework requires local planning authorities to be able to maintain a demonstrable supply of specific and deliverable housing sites sufficient for a period of a least five years. The Council publishes regular updates monitoring the level of supply in the District.
The government published a significantly updated version of the NPPF in December 2024. This made changes both to the methodology for calculating the level of need required and implications to what could be taken as counting towards the required level of delivery (particularly how historic delivery in excess of targets could be considered). The combined effect of these changes was very significant, resulting in the Planning Inspectorate concluding through a planning appeal decision issued in September 2025 that Stratford DC could not demonstrate a five year housing land supply at 31 March 2024.
Latest position
As at 31 March 2025, the Council can demonstrate the equivalent of 2.21 years of housing land supply. Further details are set out in the calculation summary and appendices below:
Efforts to boost housing land supply
The inability to demonstrate an adequate supply of housing sites has considerable implications for planning policy as under the NPPF, policies concerning the supply of housing in the development plan need to be considered as out of date.
The Council is currently pursuing a series of measures that were agreed at its Cabinet in October 2025 designed to boost land supply to the point where a 5 year land supply could be recovered - see 6 October 2025 Cabinet Report. One of the early measures agreed by Cabinet was the publication of an interim policy position statement to identify which policies are considered to be out of date and why. A draft of this document is available here. Consultation on this document closed at 5pm on Mon 9th March.
The next update to the housing land supply position is expected to be published in August 2026.
Previous calculations of supply
The below table contains an archive of our previous five year housing supply calculations, along with explanatory notes where there are different versions with the same calculation date.
| Date | Explanatory Notes |
| September 2025 | Bordon Hill appeal based on supply position at 31 March 2024 |
| June 2025 | Interim update to 31 March 2024 data |
| 31 March 2024 | |
| 31 March 2023 | |
| 31 March 2022 | |
| 31 March 2021 | |
| 31 March 2020 | |
| 31 March 2019 | |
| 31 March 2018 | |
| 31 March 2017 | |
| 31 March 2016 | |
| 31 December 2015 | Updated version (more comprehensive data on sites approved between 1 October and 31 December 2015) |
| 31 December 2015 | Interim version |
| 31 March 2015 | |
| 30 September 2014 | Reissued version following decision to increase housing requirement |
| 30 September 2014 | |
| 31 March 2014 | |
| 30 September 2013 | |
| 30 June 2013 | |
| 31 March 2012 |
Find out more
This page can be accessed quickly using the short link www.stratford.gov.uk/5yearsupply
Page last updated on 01/04/2026