Bracknell planning: 3.53 years of housing land, not 5

Bracknell Forest adopted a new Local Plan in March 2024. Two years and four months later, on 1 July 2026, a change in national policy cut the borough’s housing land supply from 4.03 years to 3.53, and put every housing application in the borough on a different footing. This page explains what happened, using the council’s own published figures.

The Local Plan, in one paragraph

The Bracknell Forest Local Plan was adopted on 19 March 2024 and runs to 2037. Policy LP4 sets a housing requirement of 614 homes a year over the 2020/21 to 2036/37 plan period, which is 10,438 homes in total. It sits alongside surviving policies from the 2013 Site Allocations Local Plan, which is where most of the borough’s big housing sites were allocated.

What changed on 1 July

National planning policy requires councils to keep a five-year supply of deliverable housing sites, with a buffer on top. Which buffer applies is the whole story here.

The December 2024 revision of the National Planning Policy Framework added a new test at paragraph 78c. From 1 July 2026, for decision-making, a 20% buffer applies where a council’s adopted housing requirement is 80% or less of the local housing need figure produced by the government’s standard method.

Bracknell Forest fails that test, and only just. Its 2026 standard-method figure is 787 homes a year. Its adopted requirement is 614. That is 78%, two percentage points under the threshold.

Nothing about the borough’s actual pipeline changed. The same 2,267 homes are expected in the same five years. The buffer moved, and the supply figure fell by half a year with it.

Why this matters to anyone reading a planning application: where a council cannot show five years of supply, the NPPF’s presumption in favour of sustainable development normally applies, and the balance in an appeal shifts towards the applicant. A 3.53-year position is not a technicality. It is the single most important number in Bracknell Forest planning right now.

The delivery record is good, and that is the odd part

Bracknell Forest is not a council that has failed to build. Its Housing Delivery Test 2023 measurement was 137%, comfortably above the 85% threshold that would trigger a 20% buffer for under-delivery. Completions since the plan’s base date total 4,075 against a requirement of 3,684, a surplus of 391 homes.

The borough’s problem is forward-looking. Its deliverable supply falls off a cliff at the end of the five-year window: 502 homes in 2026/27, 663 in 2027/28, 597 in 2028/29, then 309 and 146. On the council’s own trajectory, the last two years of the period deliver less than a single good year did.

The schemes carrying the next five years

The largest contributors to the borough’s five-year supply, from the council’s July 2026 trajectory:

The Vigar Way site is worth a note: it is the land at Jennett’s Park that was previously reserved for a park and ride on Peacock Lane. It is now allocated for 119 homes and has not started.

The office blocks are becoming flats

The most striking thing in the trajectory is not a housing estate. It is 338 homes in Bracknell’s office buildings, all granted under permitted development prior approval, all waiting on one thing: a Section 106 agreement to mitigate their effect on the Thames Basin Heaths Special Protection Area.

Arlington Square alone accounts for 205 homes across four buildings. A further 73 are already under construction at One the Braccans on London Road, where a change of use took 47 and additional floors another 26.

The council’s position is that these are deliverable: the Special Protection Area mitigation is a Habitats Regulations matter rather than a planning condition, there is enough alternative greenspace capacity in the borough to buy into, and developers usually do the internal fit-out while the agreement is being completed. That accounts for 338 of the 2,267 homes in the five-year supply, which is 15% of it.

The next Local Plan will not arrive until 2030

The council’s Local Development Scheme, which took effect on 26 March 2025, sets out the timetable for a replacement plan. It would supersede both the March 2024 Local Plan and the 2013 Site Allocations Local Plan.

• 2026/27: call for sites, notice of intention to prepare a plan, and evidence gathering, including a Green Belt Review.
• Autumn 2027: Gateway 1 assessment.
• Winter and spring 2028: first public consultation, eight weeks.
• Autumn and winter 2028: Gateway 2.
• Spring 2029: second public consultation, six weeks.
• Autumn 2029: Gateway 3, then submission to the Secretary of State.
• Spring 2030: examination concludes, inspector reports, plan adopted.

That is a four-year gap during which the adopted requirement stays at 614 while the standard-method figure sits at 787, and the 20% decision-making buffer keeps applying. The Green Belt Review is the line to watch: it is the first formal look at the borough’s green belt boundaries in this cycle, and it is the mechanism by which the gap between 614 and 787 would eventually be closed.

Frequently asked questions

Does Bracknell Forest have a five year housing land supply?

No. At 1 April 2026 the council calculates 3.53 years for decision-making purposes from 1 July 2026, against a five-year requirement. On the basis that applied up to 30 June 2026, with a 5% buffer, it was 4.03 years. Either way it is below five.

How many homes does Bracknell Forest have to build?

614 a year under Policy LP4 of the adopted Local Plan, which is 10,438 homes over the 2020/21 to 2036/37 plan period. The government’s standard method now puts local housing need at 787 a year, and the gap between the two is why the 20% buffer applies.

Why did Bracknell’s housing land supply drop?

Because of a change in national policy, not a change in the borough’s pipeline. From 1 July 2026 a new NPPF test imposes a 20% buffer where an adopted requirement is 80% or less of standard-method need. Bracknell Forest’s 614 is 78% of 787, so the buffer applies and the same 2,267 deliverable homes now cover 3.53 years instead of 4.03.

What is the biggest housing development in Bracknell?

In the current five-year supply, Bracknell Beeches on Old Bracknell Lane West at 349 homes, then Beaufort Park at 226 and Brickmark Place on the former bus station site at 169. Buckler’s Park in Crowthorne, on the old Transport Research Laboratory site, is the largest allocation overall and contributes 123 homes inside this window.

When will Bracknell Forest have a new Local Plan?

Spring 2030 on the council’s published timetable. Work on it, including a Green Belt Review, starts in 2026/27, with the first public consultation in winter or spring 2028.

Related

• Bracknell house prices: what the borough’s homes actually sell for, parish by parish.
• Bracknell roadworks and travel: the roads the new sites feed onto, and this year’s closures.
• Bracknell train times to London.
• Things to do in Bracknell.

Sources

• Bracknell Forest housing land supply calculation as at 1 April 2026, published July 2026 for both supply positions, the buffer test, the standard-method calculation, the completions series and every site in the trajectory tables.
• Bracknell Forest Council housing monitoring for the published trajectory and commitments documents.
• Bracknell Forest Local Plan for the adoption date and plan period, and the planning policy overview for the wider document set.
• Local Development Scheme, March 2025 for the replacement plan timetable and the Green Belt Review.
• Bracknell Forest’s live planning register is on a Salesforce-based system at publicaccess.bracknell-forest.gov.uk, not the Idox portal older search results still point at.

Housing land supply figures are recalculated annually and the position can change on appeal. Check the council’s own note before relying on the number.