The borough must plan for 20,402 homes by 2042, but South East Water cannot yet supply them and the Local Plan has stalled. Where every site allocation stands.

Basingstoke and Deane has to plan for 20,402 new homes between 2024 and 2042, and as of July 2026 it cannot show where the water for them will come from. That is not a rhetorical objection from a campaign group. It is the council’s own position, announced by its Cabinet on 9 July 2026, and it has stopped the Local Plan.

Everything here comes from the council’s published documents: the Draft Local Plan Spatial Strategy consulted on from November 2025, the Local Development Scheme, and the council’s own news releases.

The numbers

The borough’s adopted Local Plan still runs from 2011 to 2029 and was adopted in May 2016. Everything below concerns the plan meant to replace it, covering 2024 to 2042.

Under the government’s standard method, the borough’s annual housing need was 828 homes in 2024. The December 2024 revision of the National Planning Policy Framework took it to 1,142, and it now stands at 1,152 a year. The council puts that increase at more than 35%, and says it means finding room for over 6,000 additional homes on top of what it had already planned.

Across the eighteen-year plan period that adds up to 20,402 homes. Against that, the council counts:

Source of supply Homes
Completions in 2024/25 740
Commitments (outstanding planning permissions) 6,700
Remaining allocations carried forward from the adopted Local Plan and neighbourhood plans 1,506
Windfall allowance (small sites, averaging 50 a year) 600
Total supply 9,546

Which leaves 10,856 homes still to find. The draft plan proposes to meet the bulk of it by allocating sites for roughly 13,280 homes, alongside employment floorspace targets of 24,000 square metres of offices, 37,000 of industrial and 177,000 of logistics, supporting 1,082 jobs a year.

The stepped trajectory

Rather than build 1,152 homes every year, the council proposes a stepped requirement: lower in the first five years after adoption, higher afterwards.

Basingstoke and Deane proposed stepped housing trajectory, 2024/25 to 2041/42 Bar chart of the proposed annual housing requirement. 740 homes in 2024/25, 1,142 in 2025/26, 1,152 in 2026/27, then at least 900 a year for the five years from 2027/28 to 2031/32, then at least 1,287 a year from 2032/33 to 2041/42. The total across the plan period is 20,402 homes. The hard part is deferred to the 2030s Proposed annual housing requirement, Basingstoke and Deane Local Plan 2024-2042. Source: Draft Local Plan Spatial Strategy, Policy SPS1, November 2025. 0 500 1,000 2024/25 2027/28 2032/33 2041/42 740 at least 900 a year at least 1,287 a year The first three years are fixed to the standard method figure of the day: 740 completions, then 1,142, then 1,152. The step assumes adoption in 2027. Multiplying the steps out gives about 20,400 homes, which is the plan's total requirement of 20,402.
Two thirds of the requirement falls in the last ten years of the plan. That only works if the infrastructure arrives in the first five, which is precisely what is now in doubt.

Why the plan has stopped: water

The council consulted on the draft spatial strategy from 28 November 2025 to 23 January 2026 and received around 5,000 representations. What came out of that process was not a row about a particular field. It was a question about whether the borough can be supplied with drinking water at all at this scale.

The council’s own account, published on 9 July 2026, is blunt. An updated water cycle study raised questions about South East Water’s ability to provide a resilient supply for new homes. A transfer pipeline the company was relying on has not been delivered on time. The alternative source it has been drawing from instead is now closed to it: the Environment Agency has refused South East Water’s application to continue abstracting there on environmental grounds, and the company is appealing.

Since then the council has been working with the Environment Agency, Natural England, neighbouring councils and central government to establish how bad the problem is. South East Water is doing the technical work and, in the council’s words, is taking longer than it expected despite being challenged on it.

The consequences are specific:

  • Cabinet has to agree an entirely new Local Plan timetable. The February 2025 timetable, which had publication in summer 2026, submission in winter 2026, examination in spring 2027 and adoption in winter 2027, no longer holds.
  • The plan is unlikely to be submitted before the government’s end-of-2026 deadline, unless the extension the council is seeking is granted.
  • Plans submitted after December 2026 have to follow a new process under the government’s revised planning system, so the council may have to redo work under different rules.
  • Without an up-to-date plan, the borough is more exposed to speculative applications, which is the council’s stated reason for wanting to move fast.

Cllr Andy Konieczko, Cabinet Member for Strategic Planning and Infrastructure, told the July Cabinet that the council commissioned the water cycle study precisely to test whether supply and sewage treatment could meet future need, and that the research showed demand from new housing may outstrip sustainable limits. The next steps go to the September 2026 Cabinet meeting.

Where the big sites stand

The November 2025 draft moved a lot of numbers around. The largest allocations as proposed:

Site Homes proposed Change since 2024
Northern Manydown 3,700 Down from 4,000; part split into a separate allocation
Southern Manydown 2,750 in the plan period Up from 2,400
Popham Garden Village 1,800 in the plan period Up from 1,400
Land at Whitmarsh Lane (was “Land to the East of Basingstoke”) 1,500 Up from 900; enlarged to take in Lodge Farm
Upper Swallick 1,200 in the plan period New allocation
Oakley Farm, Wash Water 500 New allocation
Sherfield Hill Farm 385 Up from 300, reflecting permission granted
Land at West End Farm, Mortimer 350 New allocation
Land North of Pack Lane 300 Split out of Northern Manydown
Land West of Marnel Park 250 Up from 200
Skates Lane, Tadley 235 New allocation
Land West of Upper Cufaude Farm 220 New allocation
Weybrook Park Golf Course 210 Down from 220

Two sites came off the list because they are already being built: Basingstoke Golf Course (1,000 homes) and Hounsome Fields (750). Overton Mill (340) came off because it is expected to be allocated through the emerging Overton neighbourhood plan instead.

The villages carry more than they did. Overton’s requirement rose to 410, Bramley went from zero to 85, and Woolton Hill, Upton Grey, Ecchinswell and Burghclere all picked up requirements for the first time. Whitchurch went the other way, down from 220 to 185, as did Kingsclere, down to 165.

Affordable homes on a town-centre car park

Separately from the Local Plan, the council’s Cabinet considered on 9 July 2026 whether to redevelop Vyne Meadow car park on Vyne Road for 100% affordable housing. The site currently provides 349 parking spaces, most of them used by weekday permit holders, and a council parking study found it has one of the lowest usage levels of any town-centre car park, with spare capacity elsewhere to absorb it.

If it goes ahead, the council’s preferred housing partners would be invited to bring forward schemes, with the land sale conditional on all the homes being affordable, further community engagement, and development within agreed timescales. If those conditions are not met, the council can buy the land back at the original price.

Cllr Gavin James, Co-Leader and Cabinet Member for Finance and Property, put the case in one number: more than 4,000 people are on the borough’s housing register. Residents living around the site asked for development in keeping with the area, better access to the railway station and better links to nearby green space.

The car park’s current charges and its weekend capacity are on the roadworks and travel page.

The council that will finish this plan may not be this council

On 25 March 2026 the Minister for Housing, Communities and Local Government announced the final structure for local government in Hampshire. A new North Hampshire Council will be created in April 2028, taking on everything currently run by Basingstoke and Deane Borough Council, Hart District Council, Rushmoor Borough Council and Hampshire County Council in this area.

Until April 2028 nothing changes in day-to-day services. But on the timetable the Local Plan is now on, the examination and possibly the adoption of this plan will land close to the handover, and the plan itself will be inherited by an authority covering a much larger area.

Looking up an application

The borough’s planning register is Idox Public Access, at planning.basingstoke.gov.uk/online-applications, where you can search by address, postcode or reference and read the weekly list of validated applications. Planning policy documents, including the adopted Local Plan and the whole Local Plan Update evidence base, are on the council’s planning policy pages.

More Basingstoke local information: house prices, trains to London, roadworks and travel and things to do in Basingstoke.