Meeting documents

OPEN INFORMATION ITEMS – MAY 2004

Statistics concerning homelessness during the quarter ending 31 March 2004 are appended as Appendix 1a.    

At the beginning of 2002, Chiltern District Council and South Bucks District Council jointly commissioned Fordham Research to undertake a Housing Needs Survey across the districts. The survey included detailed assessments of the levels of housing need and the need for new affordable housing.

The ODPM has emphasised the importance of local authorities maintaining detailed, robust and up to date housing needs information to inform both local housing and planning polices. Consequently, at the beginning of 2004 Officers commissioned Fordham Research to carry out an update of the 2002 Housing Needs Survey for Chiltern District Council. Fordham Research updated the survey findings using a range of information sources including:

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Chiltern District Council HIP (Housing Investment Programme) statistical returns

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Estate agent surveys

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National Family expenditure survey

The overall results of the update reflect the original survey findings. However, the update finds that the level of need for affordable housing may be lower than identified by the original survey. The update states that there is an annual shortfall of 421 affordable housing units in Chiltern District. This contrasts with the estimated annual shortfall of 610 affordable housing units found by the 2002 survey.

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The survey of local estate agents has found that the private rented market in Chiltern has stalled and the cost of private renting is actually dropping in some cases. This means that some households previously identified as needing affordable housing could now afford to rent privately.

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The number of homeless households in temporary accommodation and in housing need has fallen. This is mainly due to changes in homelessness legislation. At the time of the last survey, a large number of homeless households were recorded as being in “temporary” accommodation who were being accommodated in self-contained properties with assured short-hold tenancies (i.e. limited to 2 years). These are no longer counted and this probably gives a more realistic picture of the number of homeless households in housing need (i.e. the assessment now focuses solely on households in temporary hostel/B+B accommodation).

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The annual number of vacancies in RSL (Registered Social Landlord) stock in Chiltern has increased over recent years.

The view of Fordham Research is that the revised affordable housing requirement of 421 dwellings per annum is still a very high level of unmet housing need. Consequently, Fordham Research considers that the Council can justify any target level for affordable housing on suitable sites (i.e. the percentage of affordable housing that can be secured on a private development through a Section 106 Agreement).  

As with the original survey, Fordham advise that low cost home ownership (i.e. newly built housing that is sold at a discount) will not meet local affordable housing needs. The update also suggests that shared ownership would have little impact on meeting local affordable housing needs unless a discount of over 30% was applied to the original market value of the property concerned.

The update survey also contains a specific chapter on “Balancing Housing Markets” analysis which looks at the balance between the various housing tenures in Chiltern District. This analysis found that overall the largest shortfall of accommodation is within the social rented housing tenure. The largest shortages in owner occupied housing in Chiltern arise for one and two bedroom properties. There is a significant surplus of three bedroom owner occupied dwellings.

A copy of the final Housing Needs Survey Update Report has been placed in the Members Room and will also be placed on the Council’s web-site.