Affordable housing targets exceeded over lifespan of Powys 2011 - 2026 Local Development Plan

Powys County Council’s Local Development Plan (LDP) for 2011 to 2026 delivered on its targets “pretty well” over its lifespan.

At a meeting of the Liberal Democrat/Labour cabinet on Tuesday, October 20, councillors received the annual monitoring report (AMR) for the LDP for 2025/2026, ahead of submitting it to the Welsh Government by the end of the month, as required by law.

The report will also be published on the council’s website.

The LDP, which expired on March 31, remains a “material consideration” when dealing with planning applications while the council continues to work on its delayed replacement plan.

The document reveals that 390 homes were built in the county last year, an increase of 40 on 2024/2025.

Of these, 214 were “affordable homes”, up by 11 from 2024/2025.

However, the report also explains that 181 of the 390 homes were “windfall developments”, meaning they were built on sites that had not been “specifically identified” in the LDP.

These included brownfield developments, sites within development boundaries, infill developments, conversions and affordable housing exception sites.

Council leader Councillor Jake Berriman (Liberal Democrat, Llandrindod North), a former planning chief, said: “There are some key findings. The current LDP is assessed as largely delivering on its objectives, which is a good thing, with most of the performance indicators performing satisfactorily.

“Overall housing delivery remains one of our key concerns that we have.

“If we look and see where we started in 2011, we delivered 3,813 new homes against a target of 4,500, leaving a shortfall of 687. This is a delivery rate of about 85 per cent of the target.

“We’ve had some really strong performance in delivering affordable housing, which pleases all of us. Overall, since 2011, 1,160 affordable homes have been built.

“This exceeds the LDP target of 952 by some 208, achieving 121 per cent of the target.”

Cllr Berriman continued: “So, we’ve seen strong performance in housing delivery subsidised by the Welsh Government and, for a variety of reasons, sites struggling to come forward and be completed on private and mixed schemes.”

Former council leader and current education portfolio holder Councillor James Gibson-Watt (Liberal Democrat, Glasbury) said: “I think, given the constraints slapped upon the county by regulators, we’ve done pretty well, considering half of the county was covered by phosphate restrictions, which made development very difficult, if not impossible, in a lot of places.”

Cabinet went on to approve the report.