3.9 Housing provision is made for 17,140 additional homes over the 20 year period to 2031. This reflects forecasts based on an updated assessment of migration trend based population projections (2014) and the labour requirements supporting the Council's aspirations for economic and employment growth. The NPPF requires local authorities to be able to demonstrate that the sites in its housing land supply are deliverable. The Council is taking a "stepped" approach to delivering the housing target ie. a lower target is set for the first five years, with higher targets for the following 10 years to make good the total housing requirement for the Plan period. This is for two main reasons:

• There are significant infrastructure requirements that need to be delivered to support new development. If the Council were required to allocate more sites to cover average requirement for the first five-year period, this might undermine the delivery of that infrastructure, and therefore the wider Local Plan strategy; and
• Thanet has an emergent development market, but there is a real possibility that driving high levels of requirement in the early years might undermine the viability of some sites, or result in lowered viability, which again could affect the delivery of services and infrastructure, as well as affordable housing

3.10 Taking a "stepped approach" to meeting the housing target means that the Council can demonstrate a 5-year housing land supply, and seek to ensure the delivery of sustainable development, supported by services and infrastructure.

3.11 The Council is also seeking to work with the market to encourage higher rates of house-building and recently achieved accreditation to the Housing Business Ready Programme, run by the Housing & Finance Institute (HFI). This involvement of the Homes & Communities Agency (HCA) in development in the district, and their purchase of sites for development, is an indicator of commitment to delivery in the area. The Council has been demonstrating its commitment to the delivery of housing, both to meet local housing need and to support economic regeneration, by granting planning permission for residential development on sites proposed for housing allocations, and non-allocated sites.

Policy SP11 - Housing Provision

Provision is made for a total of 17,140 additional homes in the period to 2031, with notional delivery across the period as indicated below.