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In England, councils secure affordable homes most reliably by setting clear, evidence-based requirements in the local development plan, then securing the agreed homes through planning obligations—usually on the development site. They should establish the requirement and test its deliverability early, agree tenure and delivery details with housing providers, and monitor what is built against what was promised. The applicable policy and outcome depend on the council’s current plan and the facts of the individual proposal.
Start with the local plan, not a standard national percentage
A council’s development plan is the foundation for securing affordable housing. The national policy framework for England directs plans to set requirements for the types and mix of affordable housing that meet identified local needs, including a minimum proportion of Social Rent in major development. The national policy does not establish one percentage that applies to every council or site. The locally applicable requirement must be checked in the current development plan, alongside relevant national policy and any applicable exception.
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To make a requirement useful at application stage, a council needs evidence of what homes are needed and a policy that says what the development is expected to provide. That means considering the affordable-housing share, tenure mix and, where appropriate, how requirements apply to different site types, locations or forms of development. The council should explain the basis for those distinctions rather than leave applicants to infer which rule applies.
The current National Planning Policy Framework, Chapter 6, including paragraphs HO5 and HO8, sets the national policy context. Councils should pair it with the current version of their own development plan; a national policy page cannot tell an applicant the local percentage or tenure schedule.
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Make the requirement clear and deliverable
Clarity helps landowners, developers, housing providers and communities understand the likely obligations before a site is bought or designed. The policy should state a definite requirement rather than an unexplained range, while allowing justified differences between types of development. It should also be possible to identify how affordable homes count towards the requirement, which tenures are expected and how the obligation is to be secured.
In preparing or reviewing policy, councils should assess affordable-housing need alongside infrastructure and other relevant plan requirements. Viability guidance calls for a proportionate assessment of the cumulative effect of policies and standards and places the principal viability exercise at plan-making stage. That gives parties a more predictable basis for decisions than leaving a general question about deliverability until an individual application has been submitted. See the government’s viability guidance, including its sections on plan-making and reporting.
Use Section 106 to secure the homes in a planning permission
A Section 106 planning obligation can make affordable-housing provision part of a development’s legally secured planning arrangements. For affordable homes, it can record the number or proportion of homes, tenure, delivery arrangements, phasing and the points at which the homes must be provided. The exact terms need to fit the permission and the applicable local policy; councils should not assume that one standard agreement suits every site.
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Planning obligations must meet three tests. They must be necessary to make the development acceptable in planning terms, directly related to the development, and fairly and reasonably related to it in scale and kind. These are substantive limits, not optional drafting guidance. A council should be able to explain how the obligation relates to the proposal and why it is needed. The tests apply whether or not the area also has a Community Infrastructure Levy charging schedule. The government sets them out in its planning obligations guidance.
Check whether the national threshold is relevant
Government guidance says affordable-housing obligations should generally be sought only from major residential development. For this purpose, the cited threshold is 10 or more homes or a site area of at least 0.5 hectares. A designated rural area may use a lower threshold where that approach is set through plan policy. Councils therefore need to check both the scheme’s scale and whether a relevant rural designation and local policy apply; the threshold should not be presented as a universal rule for every location or application.
Where a Community Infrastructure Levy is in place, the guidance describes it as the more appropriate route for capturing contributions from smaller development. That does not convert CIL into a substitute for the affordable homes secured on a major scheme. Councils should identify the relevant mechanism and policy for the development in question.
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Prefer on-site homes, and scrutinise alternatives
National policy says proposals should meet or exceed up-to-date development-plan requirements for the proportion and tenure mix of affordable homes, including the minimum Social Rent share. The usual expectation is provision on the development site. This makes the affordable homes part of the same development rather than relying on a separate delivery route elsewhere.
There are bounded alternatives. Nearby off-site provision may be appropriate where it would optimise the quality or quantity of affordable homes. A payment in lieu may be considered where it is robustly justified and contributes to mixed and balanced communities. Neither is an automatic developer choice or an assumed equivalent to building homes on site. A council must consider the local plan, the planning-obligation tests and the case-specific evidence.
| Route | What the council should establish | Key question |
|---|---|---|
| On-site provision | Homes, tenure, delivery terms and phasing secured for the development itself. | Does the proposal meet the up-to-date plan requirement and support a mixed community? |
| Nearby off-site provision | A credible alternative location and a reason it would optimise affordable-housing quality or quantity. | Would this produce a better supported outcome than provision on the application site? |
| Payment in lieu | A robust justification for accepting money instead of homes and a clear relationship to affordable housing and mixed, balanced communities. | Why is a payment appropriate here, and how will it support the intended local outcome? |
For each proposed route, a council can compare the number and quality of homes, tenure and rent levels, access to services and jobs, contribution to a mixed community, delivery certainty and timing, and consistency with policy. The comparison should be specific to the alternatives actually available. A cash figure by itself does not show that a payment would deliver homes of comparable tenure, location or timing.
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Deal with viability through evidence and early engagement
Viability should inform plan-making so policy requirements are realistic for the planned development types and collectively deliverable. The government’s guidance calls for an iterative process involving relevant parties, which can include local communities, developers, landowners, housing providers and infrastructure stakeholders. This is the stage at which councils can test how affordable housing interacts with other costs and requirements across the plan rather than treating each policy in isolation.
At application stage, a viability case needs to be assessed against the applicable policy and the evidence for that particular proposal. A generic claim that affordable housing is unaffordable does not establish that a current plan requirement should be set aside. Government guidance also says the price paid for land is not a relevant justification for failing to comply with up-to-date plan policies. Councils should consider relevant requirements cumulatively and assess the material evidence rather than treating a land purchase price as a reason for automatic discount.
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Coordinate with providers and plan for delivery risk
Affordable homes need a delivery route as well as a planning commitment. Councils can engage registered providers early, alongside the developer, to establish whether the proposed tenure, design, phasing and handover arrangements are workable. A written statement to Parliament on 1 September 2026 reported publication of national Section 106 affordable-housing engagement guidance developed jointly by the National Housing Federation, Home Builders Federation, Chartered Institute of Housing and Local Government Association. The statement describes a shared framework for engagement among developers, registered providers and local planning authorities. It also records the government’s stated position: “Section 106 agreements are, and will remain, an essential mechanism for delivering social and affordable housing.” That is a ministerial statement of policy, not an independently measured assessment of delivery outcomes. The Parliamentary written statement gives the date and context.
A further delivery issue arises where Section 106 homes have not been contracted to a registered-provider buyer. A government roadmap updated 24 March 2026 describes a conditional, temporary process for considering variations after reasonable efforts to find a buyer. Under the process described, units must first be listed through the Homes England clearing service for six weeks to be eligible for consideration. The roadmap includes safeguards: if the homes are not completed by 1 December 2027, the original Section 106 agreement is to apply again. Schemes in the Green Belt subject to the Golden Rules are outside this process. These conditions are specific to the roadmap; they are not a general permission to reduce affordable-housing commitments when a buyer is difficult to secure. Consult the live Section 106 delivery roadmap before relying on its time-sensitive arrangements.
Monitor what was agreed, changed and delivered
An obligation only achieves its purpose if the authority can track it through to delivery. Councils receiving developer contributions must produce annual infrastructure funding statements and keep obligations and modifications publicly available. Affordable-housing monitoring should connect the site and planning permission to the obligation, homes and tenure promised, delivery triggers, any variation, and evidence of completion. If money is received instead of homes, monitoring should also connect the receipt to its spending and delivery outcome.
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Random freezes, missing sound and display glitches usually trace back to one bad driver. Find and replace yours safely.Free scan · under a minuteFor a particular application, the useful documents are the planning register entry, the current Section 106 agreement and any later variation, the affordable-housing and tenure schedule, phasing and trigger provisions, relevant viability material, and the council’s latest infrastructure funding statement. This lets residents and decision-makers distinguish a commitment from a completed home, and identify whether an agreed change has altered what is due.
A practical sequence for a council
- Establish the applicable policy. Check the adopted and emerging development plan, national policy and any relevant supplementary guidance for the site. Identify the affordable-housing share, tenure expectations, threshold and any applicable exception.
- Confirm the proposal’s status and evidence. Check whether it is major residential development under the relevant threshold, whether a designated rural-area policy applies, and what the application and any viability material establish.
- Specify the intended homes. Translate policy into a clear proposal for quantity, tenure, location and phasing, including the minimum Social Rent proportion required by applicable policy.
- Assess the delivery route. Prefer on-site provision; consider nearby off-site homes or payment in lieu only against the policy conditions and evidence that make that alternative appropriate.
- Secure the planning obligation. Draft terms that meet the legal tests and make the required homes, tenure and delivery arrangements enforceable through the permission.
- Engage the delivery partners and monitor performance. Work through provider and delivery arrangements, then record commitments, triggers, variations, receipts and completed homes in the authority’s public reporting.
There is no nationally prescribed affordable-housing percentage that a council can simply apply to every new development. The dependable approach is a clear local requirement grounded in need and tested for deliverability, secured through an obligation that meets the legal tests, and followed through with provider coordination and transparent monitoring.
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