The current housing land supply and housing delivery position points to a significant need for housing within the borough. The Council can only demonstrate a housing land supply position of 3.64 years. Further to this the published housing delivery test result for 2021 was 67% when compared to the objectively assessed need under the Standard Method calculation (1,675 dwellings per annum (dpa)). This points to a persistent undersupply and under delivery of housing in Medway. In addition to the above, there is also a real problem with the delivery of affordable housing in the unitary authority. In 2021/22 only 17% of all gross housing completions were affordable. In the last
two years this has amounted to 408 affordable homes out of 2,264 gross completions. This is below the Council’s current target of at least 25% of homes being affordable. The cumulative shortfall over the 10 years from 2010/11 has been 3,649 dwellings. The issue may also be exasperated when the ‘right to acquire’ and ‘rent to buy’ sales of affordable homes is taken into consideration, which reduces
the amount of affordable housing stock in Medway and leads to a rise in supressed households.

Given the current housing crisis, despite the government not yet responding to the consultation on the revisions to the National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF) and lack of direction given to the future use of the Standard Method formula, it is imperative to meet the needs of the current and future residents of Medway who desperately need the right homes in the right places, with many residents currently living in sub-standard conditions.