Glasgow and the Clyde ValleyHousing Market Partnership

Housing Need and Demand Assessment An introduction

The Scottish Government’s 2007 discussion document Firm Foundations highlighted action on housing supply as a key priority and promoted cooperation and partnership working by local authorities at a regional level:

It is clear that if we are to make a step change in housing supply, it must be based on effective strategic planning. This means that housing and planning policies will need to be grounded in a robust and credible understanding of housing markets. They must also be effectively linked to the delivery of housing through planning of land supply, practical land assembly and investment…

In most cases [development of a strategic approach to housing] will mean working in partnership with two or more local authorities to devise a strategic solution to need across a wider area. This builds on current thinking and best practice in Scotland.

Scottish Planning Policy 3 Planning for Homes, revised 2008, similarly encouraged local authorities to cooperate regionally and set up Housing Market Partnerships:

Partnerships will play an important role in bringing together local authorities across housing market areas… Partnerships may also include other organisations with relevant expertise, such as housing associations and developers.

POLICY CONTEXT

GLASGOW AND THE CLYDE VALLEY HOUSING MARKET PARTNERSHIP

The eight constituent localauthorities of the Glasgow and the Clyde Valley Strategic Development Planning Authority have set up a Housing Market Partnership for the area.

The Housing Market Partnership (HMP) builds on extensive experience of joint working between the eight local authorities’ planning and housing functions and in future will also involve a wider network of organisations with relevant expertise and interests.

This new Housing Market Partnership signals a change in approach to strategic planning of housing requirements in the Glasgow and the Clyde Valley area, in response to recent encouragement from the Scottish Government.

The HMP seeks to develop a clearer shared understanding of the operation of the housing market across the region.

It aims to adopt a long-term strategic view which recognises both the interaction of various tenures in the housing system and the actual behaviour of housing systems, which operate across local authority administrative boundaries.

The HMP also aims to encourage and support dialogue between various players at regional level; in doing so it will bring to bear a greater multi-disciplinary perspective on the operation of the housing system / market, complementing existing activity at local authority level.

Local authorities East Dunbartonshire, East Renfrewshire, Glasgow City, Inverclyde, North Lanarkshire, Renfrewshire, South Lanarkshire and West Dunbartonshire

Population 1.75 million

Households 792,000

Employment 902,000 (Glasgow city 418,000)

10-year growth rate 2.0% per annum

5-year growth rate 3.5% per annum

GDP £60bn (Glasgow city £27bn)

FACTS AND FIGURES

The Glasgow and the Clyde Valley Housing Market Partnership has the following remit:

• to share information and intelligence, including relevant contextual material and policy information

• to assist with the development of a Housing Need and Demand Assessment (HNDA) and to ensure its findings are disseminated and regularly reviewed

• to support core members in the analysis and interpretation of housing market intelligence.

Housing needs and demand require to be assessed within a framework of functional Housing Market Areas (HMAs).

Since 1996, within the GCV area, there has been a well-established HMA framework for comparing future demand and supply in the private sector.

This is a tiered HMA system that reflects both the degree of interconnectivity across most of the Conurbation and a more localised element of demand.

As part of the HNDA, we will also be assessing need and demand at local authority level.

The principle strategic purpose of the Housing Market Partnership is to develop, and keep up to date, a strategic understanding of the complex and dynamic nature of the local housing system and the constituent Housing Market Areas, backed by research, analysis and critical judgement. This evidence is to be jointly assembled and presented in a Housing Need and Demand Assessment, to be submitted to the Scottish Government.

We aim to prepare a “robust and credible” Assessment for approval by the Government’s Centre for Housing Market Analysis.

This HNDA will produce a number of defined core outputs which will serve as key input data for, in turn, statutory Strategic Development Plans, Local Housing Strategies and Local Development Plans.

These HNDA outputs should include:

• market analysis and commentary on past trends, the current situation and likely future developments

• estimates of current housing supply

• demographic data - population and household estimates and projections

• projections of housing requirements by tenure - principally the requirements for market housing and social rented housing, but also including estimates of the market for ‘intermediate’ housing tenures such as shared equity

• estimates of household groups with specific housing requirements, such as older people and people with disabilities.

REMIT

HOUSING MARKET AREAS

HOUSING NEED AND DEMAND ASSESSMENT

CONTACT

Glasgow and the Clyde Valley Strategic Development Planning Authority

Lower Ground Floor, 125 West Regent Street, Glasgow G2 2SA

telephone 0141 229 7742 fax 0141 221 4518 email david.horner@gcvsdpa.gov.uk web www.gcvsdpa.gov.uk/hnda

Government policy, generally supported by local authorities, is to achieve a more balanced housing system, ensuring a sufficient number of homes of the right type, quality, cost, and in appropriate locations to accommodate the anticipated growth in the number of households.

Imbalance may affect specific tenures in whole or in part, or particular geographic areas or property types.

The relative balance/imbalance will vary over time, depending on factors such as demographic change, supply of new housing, income, and household preference.

Better understanding of the housing market, and the causes of any imbalance, should make it easier to identify when and where a policy intervention may be needed, and what form it might take.

The Housing Market Partnership Core Group comprises:

• planning and housing professionals from the eight constituent local authorities, who bring detailed understanding of the local planning context and of local housing issues and markets, and responsibility for preparing the statutory strategic and local development plans and local housing strategies

• representatives of the GCVSDPA, charged with preparing the strategic development plan, and with coordinating the preparation of the Housing Need and Demand Assessment

• a senior representative of the Scottish Government’s area team within the Housing and Investment Division.

Beyond that core membership it is recognised that there are key stakeholder/interest groups with a contribution to make - for instance, social and private landlords, developers and builders, funders, and representatives of particular housing needs groups. The HMP will complement existing consultation structures in each local authority, to support high quality strategic planning of housing in the GCV City Region.

The HMP Core Group will engage with this wider network in various ways, including face-to-face meetings, briefing seminars on key issues, and as a virtual network. It will also maintain dialogue with the Centre for Housing Market Analysis, the Scottish Government’s national centre supporting strategic planning of housing in Scotland.

TOWARDS A BALANCED HOUSING SYSTEM STAKEHOLDERS

For further information on the Housing Market Partnership or the Housing Need and Demand Assessment please contact:

David Horner, HNDA Project ManagerGlasgow and the Clyde Valley Strategic Development Planning AuthorityLower Ground Floor, 125 West Regent Street, Glasgow G2 2SA

0141 229 7742 david.horner@gcvsdpa.gov.uk www.gcvsdpa.gov.uk/hnda