deliverable

When David Cameron became Leader of the Opposition later that year, he initially resisted the temptation to impose a cap, but he too became convinced that a number was deliverable.

He said: "We have to go through a review to see what is deliverable. What I'm not going to do is make false promises, to pretend to people that money is there when it isn’t."

He insisted that the focus of Wednesday’s meetings was the bigger picture, with an emphasis on “what we can do, not what we can’t do, and on deliverables rather than running commentary.”

If the new guidance comes into place, councils will have to demonstrate they have a five-year supply of deliverable housing sites to meet the new targets.

“There comes a point where a scheme is just not deliverable,” says Mr Rickard.