Town Hall housing chief Cllr Jason Jackson cutting the ribbon on the new Elthorne Estate homes earlier this year

THE Town Hall’s ability to reject planning applications involving homes could be weakened after a government assessment put the borough in the worst category for housing delivery.

The Housing Delivery Test 2025, published last month, measures local planning authorities’ success in meeting housing delivery requirements over the most recent three-year period.

It rated Islington in the “unmet need” category after it delivered just 69 per cent of its target.

Under the National Planning Policy Framework, progressive penalties are applied to councils depending on how badly they underdelivered on increasing their housing stock.

Councils below 95 per cent are required to produce a housing delivery action plan.

With a score of 69 per cent Islington faces the most serious possible sanction which the government applies to authorities with a score of 75 per cent and below.

Called a “presumption in favour of sustainable development”, the penalty curtails planning officers’ power to reject residential planning applications and sees local planning policy become less powerful.

Applications are normally approved or rejected on a balance of the benefits and harms of a proposed development.

The “presumption” shifts that balance towards approval, meaning that for a plan to be rejected, it will need to present more serious adverse effects which outweigh the benefits of a proposed housing development.

Islington, which delivered just 1,609 of a required 2,325 new homes over a three-year period, is not alone. The measure has been levied against almost a third of local planning authorities nationwide.

That number includes 20 other London boroughs, plus the City of London and the Old Oak and Park Royal Development Corporation.

Redbridge scored the worst of the boroughs, coming in at just 30 per cent, and the City built just 4 per cent of its target.

“It’s evidence of a national problem where we’ve seen, year on year in, local authorities’ funding being cut by the government,” said Morag Gillie, a campaigner with Islington Homes for All.

She said one of her main concerns is that it could “give more confidence to these private developers to build what they want and not necessarily what the local community need. It is, by the back door, making it easier for them”.

Ms Gillie commended Islington’s building of council houses and said it has been one of the better authorities in the country, but criticised its partnerships with private developers, saying that “building private homes is not gonna be a solution. It’s definitely not going to resolve the housing crisis”.

Callum Waterhouse from renters union ACORN said of the sanction: “I sincerely hope it doesn’t undermine Islington Council’s ability to resist proposals that don’t deliver the genuinely affordable housing that residents desperately need.”

In a statement, Islington’s housing chief Labour councillor Jason Jackson told the Tribune: “We are working hard to increase the supply of much needed genuinely affordable homes by building new homes, working with developer partners to deliver new homes on council owned land and continuing to negotiate maximum levels of affordable housing on private schemes. We also have one of the most ambitious buy-back programmes in the country.

“This is set amidst hugely challenging circumstances – the funding difficulties facing local authorities, and the rapidly rising costs of construction.

“Despite these challenges, Islington remains open to new partnerships and investment that can help accelerate housing delivery across our borough.The Housing Delivery Test results and the updated National Planning Policy Framework introduce a number of changes relevant to planning decision-making.

“The council is carefully reviewing their implications and will continue to make decisions in line with its statutory duties and the applicable planning policy framework.

“Our ambition remains clear: to get more homes built, increase the supply of genuinely affordable housing and work with partners who want to invest in Islington’s future.”