Three Yorkshire councils fail Housing Delivery Test
Bradford, Kirklees and Sheffield must now treat residential applications with a presumption in favour of approval, formulate an action plan to stimulate residential delivery, and add a 20% buffer to their housing land supply.
While these three local authorities have the most to do, there is also action to take for Barnsley, Calderdale and York.
The news comes from the Housing Delivery Test results, published by government on Monday. HDT measures the number of homes needed compared to those that were built. The latest rendition looks at the years between 2022 and 2025.
Those councils falling below 95% on delivery are instructed to take measures on a sliding scale of severity.
If fewer than 95% of the required homes are delivered, the local authority must put together an action plan, assessing the causes and identifying actions to address the shortfall.
If a council is below 85%, a council must also build in a buffer of 20% to its identified specific deliverable sites.
Should a council come in below 75%, those measures are added to by the imposition of “presumption in favour” of approval on all housing applications that comply with an up-to-date development plan, are on unprotected sites, and where the downsides of development do not significantly outweigh the benefits.
Of the Yorkshire councils needing to take action, Bradford has the most to do, having delivered only 56% of the housing needed. This equated to 3,773 homes against a target of 6,773.
Sheffield came in at 58% and Kirklees at 65%.
Barnsley and Calderdale fell into the category of needing to build in a buffer zone to their land supply, coming in at 75% and 83% of homes delivered respectively.
York must put together an action plan to clamber over the 95% mark, having delivered 87% of the 2,470 homes required in the period.
Cllr Andrew Judson, Bradford Councils executive member for economy, regeneration and planning, said: “Bradford Council has responded to the government’s latest Housing Delivery Test results, which recorded a housing delivery rate of 56% for 2025, compared with 62% in the previous year.
“The reduction reflects a combination of factors, including a modest decrease in the number of homes completed during the year and changes to the government methodology used to assess housing delivery. Looking ahead, the council expects future Housing Delivery Test results to improve as newer government housing requirement calculations are incorporated into the assessment.
“We remain committed to supporting the delivery of new homes across the district and are working proactively with developers, landowners and partners to bring forward sustainable housing growth.”
As Place reported in covering two approvals in Bradford last week, the city’s supply situation is only slightly above two years at present. Kirklees’ supply has been hovering around four years.
For Sheffield’s part, the city’s emerging local plan under examination by planning inspectors this year, while it has also been consulting on removing sites from the Green Belt. Recent planning applications have put the supply figure at around three years as assessed in 2025.
The remaining councils in Yorkshire passed HDT, meaning they met more than 96% of their housing need during the 2022-2025 timespan.
All councils mentioned here were contacted for comment.
