A council's housing provision figures are "not a cause for concern", according to one councillor, despite coming in over 75% below target.

Rutland County Council delivered 16 houses against a target of 67 during the first quarter of the financial year spanning 2026 and 2027, none of which were affordable.

However, as deputy council leader Andrew Johnson (Lib Dem) explained, missed targets so early on in the year aren't usually indicative of the bigger picture.

"We're talking about a three-month quarterly report," Cllr Johnson said, "which are often a bit lumpy. It's also worth noting that housebuilders, like a lot of other businesses, tend to try and get their money in at the end of the year, meaning the first three months tend to be more fallow than the last.

"I do not think we are suffering, because I know that a whole series of housing developments have been approved. We've got something approaching 600 houses set to be built over a number of years around one development, so that's bubbling under. There's nothing causing alarm at this stage."

Cllr Johnson did, however, highlight a number of challenges in delivering houses exactly to target, including a raft of factors out of the council's control, such as the availability of builders and changing targets from Westminster.

In 2024, the Government raised Rutland's annual housing target from 123 homes to 266, forcing the council to begin production of an all-new land development plan.

But approving developments is only half the challenge, as Cllr Johnson explained, since the council cannot dictate to developers a timeframe by which the houses must be completed.

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Council members have recently raised the problem of "stop-start" house building, where developers will "dig a few holes" to officially start a project, freeing themselves of commencement timeframe pressures, then return to it intermittently.

Cllr Johnson says he would like to see the council granted more power to enforce stricter timeframes from start to completion, but doubts its real-world practicability.

"At the end of the day, builders have their own constraints around the availability of tradesmen like brickies or carpenters," he said. "Trying to enforce how and when they start and complete developments over a certain amount of time would be difficult.

"What we try to do is work with developers positively, not try and coerce them. I do not believe a coercive relationship would work in any case."