Ashford Housing Land Supply Falls to 3.16 Years

Ashford borough can now show only 3.16 years’ worth of land for new homes, well short of the five years national policy expects. The figure has dropped since June because the borough failed the Government’s Housing Delivery Test.

That matters beyond the planning office. When a council cannot show five years of supply, housing on unallocated land outside villages and towns becomes much harder to refuse. The next test comes on Wednesday evening, when councillors decide an application for 15 homes on a field at St Michaels, Tenterden.

What changed

The Government published the 2025 Housing Delivery Test on 17 August 2026. It compares the homes each council needed over three years with the homes actually built. Ashford’s line in the results spreadsheet reads:

That is a score of 75%. The borough beat its target in the first year, then built just over half of it in 2023/24 and three-fifths in 2024/25.

The previous result was very different. The council’s own housing land supply page still gives the 2023 test, published in December 2024, at 117%. On Tuesday it had not been updated with the new score.

Why 75% cuts the supply figure

The council published its five-year housing land supply statement in June. It counts 3,746 homes it expects to be deliverable between April 2026 and March 2031.

The requirement is 986 homes a year, set by the Government’s standard method. A council that scores 85% or more on the delivery test adds a 5% buffer to that. One that scores below 85% must add 20%.

• In June, with a 5% buffer: a requirement of 5,178 homes, so 3.62 years of supply and a shortfall of 1,433 homes.
• Now, with a 20% buffer: a requirement of 5,916 homes, so 3.16 years.

The council’s planning officers give the 3.16 figure in the report for Wednesday’s meeting. On our arithmetic from the council’s own numbers, the shortfall against five years is now about 2,170 homes.

The June supply already includes 252 homes that have a resolution to grant but are waiting on nutrient mitigation for the Stodmarsh lakes near Canterbury. The statement places them in years four and five.

What it means for you

The Local Plan 2030 still governs planning decisions in the borough. Without a five-year supply, though, national policy supports approving housing on the edge of settlements.

Officers set out the test in their report on the St Michaels application. Policy S5(1)(j) of the 2026 National Planning Policy Framework supports housing outside settlements where a council cannot show five years of supply. The site must be physically well related to an existing settlement, and of a scale local infrastructure can take. Such development “should be approved unless its benefit would be substantially outweighed by adverse effects”, the report says.

In practice, if you live on the edge of a town or village, expect more applications on unallocated land. Expect more officer recommendations to approve them, too. Your objections still count, but they must show harm that clearly outweighs the benefit of the new homes.

A new plan will not fix this quickly. The council has restarted its Local Plan as the Ashford Local Plan 2043, with adoption targeted for March 2028. Its scoping consultation and call for sites close at 5pm on 23 September.

Wednesday: 15 homes at St Michaels

The Planning Committee meets at 7pm on Wednesday 16 September in the Council Chamber at International House. Application PA/2025/2327 is for 15 homes on a 1.5 hectare field known as The Glebe, beside the property called Vicarage on Ashford Road (the A28). It sits on the northern edge of St Michaels. Most of the site is in High Halden parish, and its south-west corner falls inside the Tenterden Neighbourhood Plan area.

Officers recommend approval, subject to a section 106 agreement. The application comes to committee because the ward member for High Halden, Councillor Pickering, asked for it to, given that recommendation.

The scheme includes:

• 2 two-bedroom, 4 three-bedroom and 9 four-bedroom homes
• 6 affordable homes (40%): 4 shared ownership and 2 for affordable rent
• a new junction onto the A28, with footways and bus stop improvements
• a 15 metre buffer to Dawbourne Wood, which is ancient woodland
• a native hedge planted along the line of a Roman road that crosses the site, which sits inside the woodland buffer and will not be dug

Who objects. High Halden Parish Council and Tenterden Town Council both object. So do 13 public responses, plus a planning consultancy writing for one objector. Their main points:

• High Halden says the village has already grown by around 25% through Local Plan allocations and recent approvals.
• Tenterden Town Council says its 2025 housing needs survey found 113 affordable homes are needed in the parish, and that the scheme’s mix does not match that need.
• Objectors say the traffic surveys are out of date, taken during Covid and the school holidays, and before the nearby Pope House Gardens estate and care home were built.
• Residents report chronically low water pressure and doubt the network can serve 15 more homes.
• The town council says the scheme means a 79% loss of biodiversity, with the balance bought off site.

What officers say. Kent County Council’s highways team has no objection. It says the access was agreed at pre-application stage and passed an independent road safety audit. Southern Water says local sewers have capacity. The county’s flood team withdrew its holding objection after a revised drainage design, and its ecologists have no objection subject to conditions and a legal agreement securing on-site biodiversity gains. Officers found the site to be in a sustainable location, around 400 metres from the shops and services in St Michaels and 190 metres from the primary school.

Can you still speak? No. Under the council’s public participation rules, registration closed at 3pm on Monday. You can watch the meeting live on the council’s YouTube channel.

The same agenda has three smaller items:

• a garden room with annex accommodation at 21 Leveret Lane, Ashford (PA/2026/0314)
• retrospective use of land at Oldbury, Brissenden Green Lane, Bethersden, as an agricultural contractor’s yard (PA/2025/2243)
• new metal cladding and roller shutters on a building at the same Bethersden site (PA/2025/2211)

We will report the decisions. Earlier planning coverage is on our Ashford planning news page, and local prices are on our Ashford house prices page.

How Ashford compares with its neighbours

The 2025 test scored other nearby Kent councils like this:

Source: Housing Delivery Test 2025 measurement, Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government.