Analysis of Government data published alongside the new National Planning Policy Framework finds the capital has the worst Housing Delivery Test record of any English region. Chartered town planners warn that the policy those failing scores trigger will do less in London than almost anywhere else.
London has the weakest housing delivery record of any English region under the new planning rules, according to analysis of Government data by chartered town planners at national consultancy Planning By Design. The same analysis finds that the policy change those failing scores trigger will have less practical effect in the capital than in almost any other part of the country.
The new National Planning Policy Framework took effect on 17 August 2026, replacing the December 2024 version. Its national decision-making policies became material considerations from the day of publication, meaning they apply to planning applications and appeals already awaiting determination, not only to future local plans. The Government published the delayed 2025 Housing Delivery Test measurement on the same day.
Planning By Design analysed the full dataset. Of the 301 local planning authorities in England with a numerical result, 93 recorded a delivery rate below 75%. Twenty-two of those are London boroughs, out of 34 London authorities in total, a failure rate of 65% and the highest share of any English region. The South East follows with 30 of 64, or 47%. Together the two regions account for 52 of the 93.
The 75% threshold now carries new significance. Under Policy S5 of the new framework, certain categories of development outside settlement boundaries should be approved unless the benefits would be substantially outweighed by adverse effects, and a Housing Delivery Test result below 75% is expressly treated as evidence of unmet housing need for that purpose. Under the previous framework, a failing score was a route into the tilted balance, a technical argument applicants had to construct and defend case by case.
Why London is the exception
Aaron Basi, Chartered Town Planner and Head of Planning at Planning By Design, said:
There is a further twist that I think will get missed. Policy S5 governs land outside settlements. In most of London there is barely any land outside a settlement, so for the majority of those 22 boroughs the S5 route is close to academic and Policy S4 is doing the real work. The region where this genuinely changes the arithmetic is the South East: 30 authorities, a great deal of countryside, a great deal of Green Belt, and a policy that now starts from should be approved rather than from no.
Basi added:
The instinctive reading of housing reform in this country is that it is aimed at the North. This data says the opposite. The councils that have crossed the threshold are overwhelmingly in the South East and London, which is where land is most expensive, most constrained and most fiercely defended.
The City of London recorded the lowest delivery rate in England at 4%. Across all 301 authorities, England delivered 707,700 homes against 772,200 required over the three years to March 2025, a national delivery rate of 92%.
What a failing score does not mean
Planning By Design is warning that the change is narrower than it is likely to be reported.
A sub-75% score satisfies one limb of one category within Policy S5. Even for a housing proposal that qualifies, the site must also be physically well-related to an existing settlement, unless the nature of the development makes that requirement inappropriate, and of a scale that existing or proposed infrastructure can genuinely absorb. Design, highways, drainage, heritage, landscape and biodiversity all apply exactly as they did before.
The same evidence is relevant to the unmet need limb of the grey belt policy, but Green Belt land remains subject to its own distinct policy framework, and the stronger general support for development elsewhere does not override it.
Basi said:
We have spent a year telling landowners that reform of the Green Belt is not the same thing as permission on their field. That is still true, and it is still the most expensive misunderstanding in this market. A failing delivery score is not planning permission. It is evidence that gets a proposal through one door. Everything on the other side of that door is unchanged.
Live applications are affected now
Annex A of the framework states that development plan policies which are materially inconsistent with the new national decision-making policies should be given very limited weight, unless they were examined and adopted against this framework. Age alone is not the test, but a materially more restrictive local policy may now carry considerably less weight than it did in July.
MHCLG figures show district-level authorities in England received 79,600 planning applications in the quarter to March 2026 and decided 68,400, granting 87%. A substantial number of those cases were still undetermined on 17 August and now fall under a different rulebook to the one under which they were submitted.
Planning By Design is advising anyone with a live application or appeal to review whether their planning case needs to be supplemented to address the new framework.
The full analysis, including the complete regional breakdown and a practitioner explanation of what the new NPPF changes for planning applications from 17 August, is available here.
