None of West Kent's Four Councils Hit Their Housing Target - Here's How Each One Did

The Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government has published its 2025 Housing Delivery Test results, and none of West Kent's four councils came close to building the homes they were required to over the past three years. Sevenoaks delivered just 25% of its target, Tonbridge & Malling 63%, and Maidstone and Tunbridge Wells 93% each - and under the Government's own rules, that has real planning consequences for two of the four.

The test compares each council's actual net housing completions over 2022-23, 2023-24 and 2024-25 against how many homes it was required to deliver over the same three years. Sevenoaks needed 2,130 homes and delivered 523 - 25% of target, the steepest shortfall of the four. Tonbridge & Malling needed 2,485 and delivered 1,570 - 63%. Maidstone needed 3,000 and delivered 2,784, and Tunbridge Wells needed 1,999 and delivered 1,863 - both 93%. All four fall short of full delivery; it's the size of the gap that decides what happens next.

The test has two thresholds. Deliver under 95% of target, and a council must publish an action plan setting out how it will catch up - that's the consequence recorded against Maidstone and Tunbridge Wells. Deliver under 75%, and the presumption in favour of sustainable development set out in national planning policy applies to the council's decisions - a stronger tilt toward approving development that Sevenoaks and Tonbridge & Malling now both carry, on top of whatever action plan requirement already applied at a smaller shortfall. Neither is a fine or a sanction in the ordinary sense; both make it harder for the council to say no to planning applications it might otherwise have refused.

Of the district-level results published for Kent, only Dover delivered more homes than it was asked for - 108% of target - and so faces no consequence at all, alongside Dartford on 96%. At the other end, Sevenoaks's 25% is the worst in the county; Folkestone & Hythe (57%), Gravesham (61%), Swale (70%) and Thanet (70%) also land below the 75% presumption threshold. Kent's four West Kent boroughs sit in the middle of that range rather than at either extreme, but all four are still under-delivering against homes they were told to plan for.

This isn't an abstract housing-policy footnote for West Kent. Sevenoaks and Tonbridge & Malling are both already redrawing their Local Plans under pressure from higher Government housing targets set in December 2024, arguments this site has covered as they've played out over Green Belt land and water supply. A presumption in favour of development gives developers a stronger hand in exactly the kind of borderline planning appeals those Local Plan fights are meant to settle - so a council already under pressure to allocate more sites now also has less room to turn down applications on sites it hasn't allocated. Source: Housing Delivery Test: 2025 measurement, Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government