Show what schools, health, road and parking support each major housing scheme has secured and delivered

The problem and who is affected

Portsmouth needs more homes: the 2025 Housing Delivery Test counted 308 delivered against 2,702 required (11%). More homes help with homelessness, temporary accommodation (608 households on 31 March 2026), shared housing demand and rents, but they add residents to services already under pressure: 20,875 registered patients per GP practice (September 2026), 42.9% of new education and care plans issued on time (2025), three roads and one railway line onto Portsea Island, and 749.3 million vehicle miles on the city’s roads in 2025. For the eight housing schemes checked on 10 November 2026, no legally secured school, SEND or GP contribution could be verified in the records read, and parking was proposed or reported for five. Planning agreements and the Community Infrastructure Levy can secure contributions, but a promised sum, money paid, money allocated and a finished facility are four different things, and the records showing them sit in different places.

Who is affected: Residents near large schemes and in neighbourhoods with the most new building; families needing school and SEND places; patients seeking GP appointments; and people travelling on the few roads onto the island, including households without a car (30.3% in 2021).

What this would change

Aim: For every major housing scheme, residents can see which school, SEND, GP, transport and parking measures are required, who pays, how much has been paid and whether anything has been delivered.

What success would mean: Each major scheme has a public, dated entry separating promised, paid, allocated and delivered for each service, with “not found” shown where no record exists, updated at least twice a year. The entries match the signed agreements and the council’s infrastructure funding statement. No numeric target is proposed. This proposal improves information and does not by itself provide places or road space.

Publish a table for each major scheme and each service (schools, SEND, GP and health, transport and highways, parking, open space). Take each obligation from the signed planning agreement and record its trigger (for example, occupation of a stated home), the amount or work, whether it has been paid, whether it has been allocated to a named project, and whether it has been delivered. Add the Community Infrastructure Levy received and spent, using the council’s 80% strategic, 15% neighbourhood and up to 5% administration rule. Ask the education service and the NHS integrated care board to say what each scheme’s homes would need. Where nothing is found, say so.

Proposed lead: Portsmouth City Council planning, education, transport and highways teams, with NHS Hampshire and Isle of Wight Integrated Care Board, as a proposal. Partners: NHS Hampshire and Isle of Wight Integrated Care Board and local GP practices, Schools, academy trusts and the council’s SEND and education services, Highway bodies for the M275 and A27 trunk roads, Developers and registered providers (VIVID, Vistry/Abri, PJ Livesey, Bellway and others), Homes England.

Powers: The council can seek planning contributions through section 106 agreements and set the Community Infrastructure Levy; it allocates 80% of levy receipts to strategic infrastructure, 15% to neighbourhood priorities and up to 5% to administration (25% neighbourhood share where a qualifying neighbourhood plan applies). These are allocation rules, not a promise that one estate’s money funds a service beside it. It cannot decide NHS capital spending, which sits with NHS bodies, and what it can require is limited by scheme viability: the 2024 Fraser Range proposal reported no affordable housing, with the planning agent citing more than £18.5 million of infrastructure and related costs, and the council’s own estimate of the Tipner West funding gap is about £107 million. Which obligations are lawfully required for each scheme has not been checked here.

Options

• Current approach: Current approach: statutory infrastructure funding statement and planning papers. The council publishes an annual infrastructure funding statement (2024-25 listed), a levy spend page and planning reports. These were not read in this pass for per-scheme detail, and no per-scheme table of promised, paid and delivered was found.
• Proposed response: A per-scheme infrastructure tracker (promised, paid, allocated, delivered). One public table per major scheme and service, built from signed agreements and levy records, with a date checked and gaps stated.
• Proposed response: Extend the proposed site delivery tracker with infrastructure columns. Add the same four stages to the site-by-site tracker proposed in the housing delivery plan, instead of a separate table. Kept as a separate proposal here because the evidence and the bodies (education, NHS, highways) differ.
• Alternative: Do minimum: add a scheme-level summary to the annual infrastructure funding statement. List the contributions agreed for each major scheme once a year, without tracking payment or delivery.
• Alternative: Slow or pause housing until infrastructure is secured. Not proposed. It could deepen the shortage shown by the 11% delivery result and leave homelessness and rent pressures unaddressed, though it would give services more time to prepare.

Information alone does not create school or GP places; those depend on the education authority, NHS bodies and their budgets, and on viability decisions that can trade infrastructure against affordable homes. A tracker is low cost but could show large gaps without a way to close them. Pooled levy money may not be tied to the site that generated it. The option to delay housing is shown for completeness, not recommended.

Delivery plan

A first practical step: Anyone could start by recording, for each of the eight schemes in the developments research, what the council’s planning papers and agreement summaries say about schools, SEND, GP and parking, and flag where nothing is found. The council could then adopt or correct it.

Costs and funding

One-off costs

Not costed. Mainly officer time to read agreements and compile the first table.

Recurring costs

Not costed. Updating twice a year needs planning, finance and education staff time.

Capital or revenue

Revenue for the tracker. The school, GP and road works it would report are capital and are paid by developers, the levy or public bodies.

Funding status

No funding identified for the tracker. The works it would track are funded, if at all, through planning agreements, the levy and public budgets, none of which is totalled here.

Affordability

Not appraised. The tracker is low cost; the infrastructure it would reveal may not be affordable alongside affordable homes and scheme viability.

Costing still needed

Estimate staff days per scheme for the first table and each update; separately, the capital cost of any school, SEND, GP or road capacity the tracker shows is missing.

Benefits, risks and trade-offs

Possible benefits: Residents, councillors and service providers could see which services each scheme’s homes are expected to support, whether the money has arrived and whether anything has been built, early enough to plan. Gaps could be raised before homes are occupied. These benefits are not quantified.

Risks:

• The table could be read as a commitment when contributions, triggers and dates can change.
• Obligations may not be found, or the agreements may be hard to read, leaving many cells “not found”.
• Asking for more infrastructure can cut affordable housing or stall viability-limited schemes.
• Pooled levy money may not reach the area that generated the demand.
• Pressure on services cannot be attributed to new homes alone: existing demand, school rolls and NHS funding also matter.

Who could gain or lose: Families needing SEND places, patients seeking GP appointments and households without a car (30.3% in 2021) are most affected if services lag behind new homes. People waiting for a settled home gain from more supply, so slowing building to secure services carries its own cost. Neighbourhoods with many schemes at once may carry more disruption.

Environment: Several schemes involve sea defences, ground raising and habitat mitigation. Traffic and parking choices affect air quality and use of walking, cycling and buses; none of this is assessed here.

Capacity: The council’s planning register blocks scripted access, so first collection is manual; planning, finance, education and ICB staff time would be needed and is not assessed or allocated.

How to judge progress

Reassess when: Reassess when the Local Plan inspectors report, when the Bellway Tipner East decision is made, when the next infrastructure funding statement is published, or when signed agreements for any of the eight schemes are read.

Where things stand

What is known:

• The 2025 Housing Delivery Test result is 11%: 308 homes against 2,702 required.
• No school, SEND or GP obligation could be verified for any of the eight schemes checked on 10 November 2026.
• The council allocates 80% of Community Infrastructure Levy receipts to strategic infrastructure, 15% to neighbourhood priorities and up to 5% to administration.
• The Victory Quay highway improvements are tied to occupation of the 180th home (variation approved 8 August 2025; deed wording unverified).
• Somers Orchard’s 566 planned homes include replacements for 272 social rent homes, so they are not all net additions.

What is not known:

• What the signed agreements for the eight schemes require for schools, SEND, GP, transport and parking.
• How much levy money has been paid in and allocated to schools, health and transport projects.
• What extra school, SEND and GP capacity the education service and the NHS say the new homes need.
• How much parking demand the new homes will add: no local parking-demand measure was found.
• Whether the infrastructure funding statement already reports any per-scheme position.

Decisions needed:

• Whether the council will publish a per-scheme infrastructure table and how often.
• Whether the table is built separately or added to the proposed site delivery tracker.
• How the council and the NHS will estimate need by scheme.

Existing work:

• Infrastructure funding statement 2024-25: Published (file uploaded December 2025); not read in this pass for per-scheme detail (as of 2025-12).
• Community Infrastructure Levy spend and receipts: Council page states the 80% / 15% / 5% allocation rule (as of 2026-11-10).
• Statement of common ground with the NHS Hampshire and Isle of Wight Integrated Care Board: Published 2026 as local plan evidence; not read for any scheme-level health contribution (as of 2026-10).
• Victory Quay highway improvements: Tied to occupation of the 180th home; variation approved 8 August 2025, deed wording unverified (as of 2025-08-08).
• Portsmouth Transport Strategy 2021-2038 (Local Transport Plan 4): Council transport strategy (as of 2026-11-09).

Next review: When the Local Plan inspectors issue their post-hearing letter or report, or when the next infrastructure funding statement is published.. Evidence last checked 2026-11-10.

Sources