Local Housing Strategies Guidance

Market Analysis, Needs Assessment and Problem Identification

This assessment criteria looked at how the LHS had analysed the housing market, needs assessment and problem identification and the interaction between all tenures.  The assessment considered whether housing system boundaries and market characteristics had been identified.  Key supply and demand characteristics and issues of the owner occupied, private rented and social rented sectors should have been identified and analysed.  Any analysis should have been based on appropriate sources and methodologies.  Stock quality should have been assessed and key issues identified and prioritised. This would then allow overall investment, renewal and demolition priorities to be articulated. The needs of groups with particular needs such as homeless people, refugees should have been identified. Were  national and local economic and demographic trends considered?  There should also have been evidence of joint working with neighbouring authorities to gather market intelligence and a clear prioritisation of how to deal with this.  Affordable housing should have been considered in the context of other additional housing unit targets as set out in the Structure Plan.  The capacity of the construction industry to deal with the priorities identified needed to be considered.  Finally, was there an assessment of existing housing information and advice services? 

Strengths

In general, those LHS which were assessed as having dealt with this criteria well have identified housing system boundaries and market characteristics.  Affordable housing needs assessments have been based on a range of information and grounded in robust appraisals.  Key characteristics of the local social rented sector to sub market level have been identified and analysed, based on appropriate and up to date sources. 

Weaknesses

However, the issues which the assessment process identified as being weaker typically included not linking potential impacts between tenures and addressing these issues or considering the impact of current and future trends in the national and local economies.  Priorities for affordable housing were not identified and there was no attempt to quantify these for the LHS period and beyond. Need was also not set in the context of other additional unit targets in, for example, the Structure Plan.  Often it was not clear what the investment, renewal and demolition priorities were at sub area level for the social rented sector or what the priorities were for private sector stock condition investment.  There was also a lack of identification of the needs and priorities of particular needs groups and how these linked to other LHS priorities for housing investment.  Finally the need for intervention in the owner occupied sector was often not assessed.

Examples of Good Practice

Examples of good practice for how market analysis, needs assessment and problem identification were dealt with can be found in the following LHS.  For further information you should contact the Councils directly:

East Lothian Council

City of Edinburgh Council

South Lanarkshire Council

The overall gradings achieved from the assessment of the Market Analysis, Needs Assessment and Problem Identification critical area were as follows: