Buckinghamshire have recently closed their latest Call for Sites period in readiness for developing their Spatial Strategy. The Council are now expecting a Regulation 18 consultation to take place in Autumn 2025. Whilst not being site specific, the Regulation 18 consultation is likely to give an indication of how the Council believe they could accommodate the additional 65,000 homes needed under the revised Standard Method.
This will be a significant challenge for the Council and is likely to necessitate looking at all levels of the settlement hierarchy, with strategic allocations likely to be necessary alongside smaller allocations in lower order settlements – potentially at a level not seen in the past. There could be implications on any proposed strategy, as a result of the local election results of May 2025. The Conservatives lost their majority, with the Council having no overall control, as a result.
In the interim, there remains a land supply deficit across Buckinghamshire, with a deliverable 5-year land supply not being able to be demonstrated in any of the four former Districts, or across Buckinghamshire as a whole. This, along with the Government’s new Grey Belt policy, provides a short-term opportunity to look at realising the development potential of sites via speculative applications, particularly given the slow progress on plan making.
In Milton Keynes, development of the New City Local Plan continues and is on track for a Regulation 19 consultation in September/October 2025. This is expected to follow a similar form to the strategy set out at Regulation 18 stage, with a combination of new strategic allocations and densification within Central Milton Keynes – a key focus of the Plan. Given the latest stage of the plan making process, and in the context of the limited impact of the revised NPPF on Milton Keynes, there are currently limited opportunities in the area.
Five-Year Land Supply
The adopted Development Plan for Milton Keynes comprises Plan:MK (2016-2031). This is over 5 years old (adopted March 2019), therefore, the updated Local Housing Need Standard Method must be used to calculate Milton Keynes’ 5 year housing land supply. This has most recently been published in October 2024 for the period 2024-2029 as 5.47 years.
In Buckinghamshire, the latest 5 year housing land supply figures for the period 2024-2029 were published January 2025 as 4.00 years (Aylesbury Vale), 0.89 years (South Bucks), 1.96 years (Wycombe) and 0.73 years (Chiltern) measured against the adopted Development Plan(s).
From April 2025, we are of the view that the Unitary Authority is required to publish a combined housing land supply figure for the whole Authority area. However, the Council stated at their 19th March 2025 Planning Forum that this will only be published on adoption of a new Local Plan.
Whilst this position does not currently affect the opportunity to bring forward speculative applications across Buckinghamshire, as the shortfall in supply drops, the issue may be one that plays out through planning appeals.
Additionally, in Buckinghamshire, the presence of Green Belt across much of the south of the County, combined with the shortfall in land supply provides the opportunity to explore the potential for Grey Belt development, in accordance with the revised NPPF.
