Housing Delivery Test Position Statement 2023

The Housing Delivery Test (HDT) was introduced by the UK Government in 2018 to determine which local authorities have been able to meet their housing requirement and which have not, based on an assessment of net homes delivered against the homes required over the three previous financial years.

The most recent Housing Delivery Test results were published by the Ministry for Housing Communities and Local Government (MHCLG) on 12th December 2024 accounting for the financial years 2020/21 to 2022/23. This provided an incorrect measurement for Watford, reporting the Council’s Housing Delivery Test result as 121%.

The Council identified this error and contacted MHCLG to query the result and received formal notification that an error had been made on 15th January 2025.

This formal letter set out a revised calculation which showed that the borough achieved a score of 97% during the most recent HDT period 2021-2023 and not 121%. This means that although the revised score reduces the percentage score relative to the incorrect figure that was published in December, it does not change the fact that no sanctions apply, and the Council has moved out of the presumption.

MHCLG requested that the Council publish this revised position. A formal position statement has been produced and the letter has been appended to this statement. The statement can be viewed here online.

For the avoidance of any doubt the result detailed in the statement formally supersedes the figure that was published by MHCLG on 12th December 2024.