Housing Needs Assessment 2006 - Westminster City Council

Westminster – Housing Needs Assessment 2006ODPMGuide‘Housing needs estimates and projections expressed as global figures for an entirelocal authority area are important, but they are far from being the whole story… it isimportant that local authorities consider the extent to which such outputs should bedisaggregated by property size/type and also by sub-area.If this is not done, there is a danger that global figures will mask the true situation –for example, a surplus of smaller properties could act to offset a shortage of largerhomes. In reality, of course, this offsetting could not occur, since the availability ofsmaller homes would be of no value to those needing family-size accommodation’.[Section 4.7 (pages 66-67)]Hence this section looks at any mismatches between the need for affordable housing and the supplyfor different sizes of accommodation and at a sub-area level.(i) Size requirementHaving estimated the net need for affordable housing in the City, it is useful to make suggestionsabout required property sizes. This is done through looking at past patterns. The number ofbedrooms required by households in need is balanced against the number of bedrooms secured bythose who have recently moved into affordable accommodation. The number of bedrooms requiredis a sustainable measure that reflects the number of people in a household and ensures theaccommodation is suitable for the household over a period of time.This analysis is shown in the table below, which indicates that there are shortfalls for all sizes ofaccommodation. The largest shortfall is for two bedroom units, however, the shortage relative tosupply is greatest for three bedroom properties where it is estimated that only 4.2% of the need canbe met. It should be noted that the size profile of the supply of affordable housing is obtained byconsidering the distribution of dwellings let to new Council and RSL tenants (i.e. not includinghouseholds transferring within the social rented sector) over the past three years based oninformation supplied by the Council. The proportions are then applied pro-rata to match the totalsupply figure.Table 10.2 Net need for affordable housing by size() indicates a surplusSize required Need Supply TOTALSupply as% of need1 bedroom 2,127 535 1,592 25.2%2 bedroom 2,429 160 2,269 6.6%3 bedroom 1,645 69 1,576 4.2%4+ bedroom 194 9 185 4.7%TOTAL 6,395 774 5,621 12.1%Source: City of Westminster Housing Needs Survey 2006PAGE 94