Housing delivery has collapsed
Portsmouth delivered 308 homes against a requirement of 2,702 over three years — a Housing Delivery Test result of 11%, down from 26%. Its Local Plan proposes building only 74% of assessed need, and is at examination now.
Housing is raised constantly in local debate, but usually as affordability, HMOs or a specific development. The delivery-test collapse itself was published on 17 August 2026 and has had comparatively little public attention relative to its significance.
Affects the whole city and compounds over decades. Portsmouth is building at roughly a tenth of the rate its own delivery test requires, in a city that already states it cannot meet its own assessed housing need, with a combined sub-regional unmet need of 18,347 homes.
The Housing Delivery Test result fell from 26% (published December 2024) to 22% and then 11% (both published 17 August 2026). Three consecutive measurements below the 45% threshold that triggers the presumption in favour of sustainable development.
11% — and falling fast
Portsmouth delivered 308 homes against a requirement of 2,702 over three years — a Housing Delivery Test result of 11%. Anything below 45% triggers the "presumption in favour of sustainable development", which weakens a council's ability to refuse housing applications.
Why the timing matters.The 2024 and 2025 results were both published on 17 August 2026 — after the Local Plan evidence base was written. The council's 20% buffer justification and its claimed 5.03-year land supply were built on the 26% figure. The examination is live now.
Caveats on these figures (3)
- •The 2024 and 2025 measurements were both published on 17 August 2026, so this deterioration is very recent and postdates most of the Local Plan evidence base.
- •The published annual components do not sum exactly to the published totals in any of the three years — an off-by-one that appears in MHCLG's own dataset and is reproduced here as published rather than silently reconciled.
- •Two single-year delivery figures are extraordinarily low — 9 net additional homes in 2022-23 and 10 in 2024-25. These are the figures exactly as MHCLG publishes them. Neither MHCLG nor the council has published an explanation, and none is inferred here.
The plan meets 74% of assessed need
Portsmouth proposes 11,369 homes for 2025–2040 against an assessed need of 15,285 — a shortfall of 3,916 homes, or about 261 a year.
The 11,369 figure is explicitly capacity-based, not need-based — it is what the council believes can physically be built, and it is stated to be inclusive of the 20% buffer. Without that buffer the first five years would require 470 homes a year.
Fareham Borough Council has committed to 800 homes of Portsmouth's unmet need, which would raise the proportion met to about 80%.
Status: Submitted 18 March 2026. Three inspectors appointed 23 March 2026. Matters, Issues and Questions issued 19 August 2026. Adoption anticipated spring 2027.
Portsmouth City Council's own May 2025 recalculation of the standard method. MHCLG's published December 2024 indicative figure is 1,021 — the same formula on a different vintage of affordability data, not a contradiction.
The council's own explanation
“The City of Portsmouth is a highly constrained authority, which has a significant impact on land supply, and availability of land for development. The constraints to development include: the City's island geography, its nature conservation and heritage designations, contaminated land, flooding, and limited land availability due to its highly built-up nature.”
— Portsmouth City Council, Housing Background Paper, October 2025
The council also states plainly that it "is unable to meet its own needs based on the standard method figure, and so is unable to meet the housing needs of other authorities". Gosport, Havant and Portsmouth have a combined unmet need of 18,347 homes.
Three wards hold two-thirds of Portsmouth's licensed HMOs
3,158 licensed HMOs are on the council's register as at August 2026. Charles Dickens, Central Southsea and St Thomas account for the large majority.
An Article 4 Direction has removed permitted-development rights for converting a family home to a small HMO across the whole city since 1 November 2011 — so every such conversion needs planning permission.
Planning policy refuses new HMOs where more than 10% of residential properties within a 50-metre radius are already HMOs. The emerging Local Plan carries this into Strategic Policy PLP20 and adds tests on "sandwiching" and three-in-a-row.
A city-wide additional licensing scheme has required every HMO, whatever its size, to be licensed since 1 September 2023.
The council's Authority Monitoring Report estimates 3,230 licensed plus 1,136 unknown or possible HMOs — about 4,366 in total (December 2025). Total estimated stock has been essentially flat (4,358 a year earlier) while the licensed share rose sharply as the additional licensing scheme took effect.
The ward breakdown is a tabulation of the council's published combined HMO register. It is a count of licensed properties, not a concentration rate — the council publishes concentration only as a map image, so no per-ward percentage is shown here.
Portsmouth City Council and the Planning Inspectorate
Local Plan hearings, then the Inspectors' report in spring 2027
Comment on the Local Plan examination and on individual planning applications
Raised persistently by residents as affordability and by councillors as HMO concentration — and now sharply escalated by a delivery-test result published in August 2026.
Public and political discussion indicates what people are raising. It is not evidence that a claim is true.
Verified facts
Full detail — why it matters, who else is involved, what is being done
- •Portsmouth City Council — Local Plan, planning decisions, HMO licensing and its own housing stock
- •Planning Inspectorate — Examining the Local Plan now — decides whether the 74%-of-need requirement is sound
- •UK Government (MHCLG) — Sets the standard method, the delivery test and national planning policy
- •Homes England — Grant funding that determines whether affordable schemes are viable
- •Private developers — Actually build the great majority of homes — permission does not compel building
- •Neighbouring authorities — Fareham has committed to 800 homes of Portsmouth's unmet need
- •No published explanation for the two single-year delivery figures of 9 and 10 net additional homes.
- •MHCLG's own published annual components do not sum exactly to its published totals in any of the three delivery-test years.
- •No published decomposition of how much of the shortfall is physical constraint versus viability versus scheme timing.
- •Ward-level HMO concentration is published only as a map image, so no per-ward rate can be shown.
- •Temporary accommodation and homelessness figures are not yet included here — that research was not completed.
Sources & methodology (3) · last verified 2026-08-26
What could be done, and what it would cost
Full action plan →UK Stat Pack's own analysis — not Portsmouth City Council or government policy. Each item states what is officially happening, if anything.
A Community Land Trust for island housing
Not proposed officiallyWhy it might work, and the trade-offs
CLTs are an established UK model (e.g. London CLT, St Clements) precisely for constrained urban land where conventional "affordable" percentages get eroded by viability negotiations. Because the land is permanently removed from the open market, affordability doesn't decay over time the way section 106 discounts sometimes do.
Trade-offs. CLT delivery is typically slower and smaller-scale than conventional private development, and depends on finding a willing landowner (public or MOD land) rather than relying on the open market.
How we would know it worked. Number of CLT homes completed and let/sold below market value; Whether affordability is genuinely locked in at re-sale (not eroded over time)
Insist Tipner West's marine employment space is built alongside the housing, not after it
Under discussionWhy it might work, and the trade-offs
This is a planning-conditions ask, not a new funding request — it uses a lever the council already has (planning obligations) rather than asking for new money.
Trade-offs. Tying housing delivery to commercial floorspace conditions can slow down urgently-needed housing if a developer argues the employment space is not viable — a genuine trade-off between speed of housing delivery and the jobs objective.
How we would know it worked. Marine employment floorspace actually delivered vs the 58,000 sqm allocation, tracked phase by phase