EHDC Is Partly to Blame for Rising Housing Targets

By failing to use its own delivery powers, EHDC is contributing to the rise in housing targets it claims to oppose — with policies that appear more concerned with accommodating developer profits than solving the housing crisis.

EHDC has a lot of tools it could use to make sure houses get built on time, and to stop developers from gaming the system, such as:

  • Releasing land in stages only when infrastructure (like roads and schools) is ready.
  • Making clear in planning policy that land-banking is discouraged.
    Setting conditions in planning permissions that require timely building.

  • Naming and shaming slow developers in public reports.
  • Replacing land that isn’t being used with new, better-performing sites.
  • Only giving new sites to developers with good past delivery records.
  • Asking national government for more power to act on land-banking.
    • Beechlands Road Community