On 29th November 2023, the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities updated the housing supply (net additional dwellings) data for England, providing a review of the new dwellings delivered in 2022-23. The full publication is available here.
The annual change in net dwellings is broken down into the following categories:
New house building completions;
Gains or losses through conversions (for example, a house into flats);
Changes of use (for example, a shop into a house or a barn conversion);
Demolitions; and
Other changes to the dwelling stock (caravans, houseboats, etc).
The importance of providing new housing to meet the needs of the community is well established within the town planning system. Paragraph 60 of the National Planning Policy Framework, which sets out the overarching planning policies for England, establishes the Government's objective to significantly boost the supply of homes. As such, net additional dwellings are a key component in the success of the planning system.
The graph below shows the percentage change in net additional dwellings compared with the previous year.
One key statistic is that the housing supply in England amounted to 234,400 net additional dwellings in 2022-2023. This results in a 0% change in the net additional dwellings provided compared with 2021/2022, as shown above.
Viable Placemaking's Briefing Note: The Housing Crisis in 2023 reviewed the cumulative impact of England's unmet housing need in the period since the 2010 election. The impacts of this unmet housing need has been worsened in recent years due to various factors including worsened affordability and the cost of living crisis.
ONS housing affordability data published earlier in 2023 found that full-time employees in England could expect to spend around 8.3 times their annual earnings buying a home. The equivalent figure in Wales is 6.2 times their annual earnings. By comparison, in 1997, these levels were 3.54 and 3.00 respectively. Clearly, housing affordability has worsened significantly in recent years.
Additionally, previous research conducted by Viable Placemaking showed the intrinsic link between housing supply and affordability. As such, the under-performance of net additional housing in comparison with the need, is expected to exacerbate this issue.
For applicants and developers, the provision of housing should be a benefit of any application or appeal and ought to be duly considered by a Council. In recent projects, Viable Placemaking have prepared Affordability Statements and Housing Needs Statements to accompany a submission to clearly reinforce this matter within an application.
If you would like more information on how housing supply and affordability can impact your development, please don't hesitate to get in touch.