The city of York in England has not formally adopted a spatial plan since 1954. Development decisions are currently guided by a Local Plan drafted in 2005 – a document that was formally adopted by the Local Council. A new plan has been in the making since 2012. York is an outlier within a group of English local authorities (in 2018 it was about 25% of the total) who have been late in updating their local plans to reflect the 2012 and 2018 National Planning Policy Framework. Key reasons for the delays include interminable discussions about housing needs assessments, and sites allocation (as the local level tries to resist housing building targets set by the Government). The process tends to get stuck either in local politics or in the evaluation conducted by the planning inspectorate.