Councils Risk Undersupply of Housing

New research suggests that local councils in England may be underestimating housing need by up to 30% in some cases, due to an overreliance on Government household projection data, according to the Royal Town Planning Institute. The research examined the CLG’s household projection figures and suggests that in some cases the projections are likely to poorly reflect likely local household need. Government’s household projections form the basis for calculating housing need in councils’ Local Plans, which determines how much housing is planned for an area. The key issues are whether councils treat the Government projections as a starting point which can be varied according to robust local evidence, and how practical it is for them to produce a robust evidence base that will be accepted by the Planning Inspectorate when it examines the Local Plan. Read more on the RTPI website.