Text Size: [ A (small font) | A (medium font) | A (large font) ]

Housing Needs Assessment

The Council has produced two Housing Assessments. The first is the Strategic Housing Market Assessment, which was completed in 2010. This relates to several Hertfordshire and Essex Local Authorities in the M11 corridor area. The second is the DCA Housing Assessment 2007, which looks specifically at housing need in Broxbourne.

Strategic Housing Market Assessment 2008

Introduction

The Strategic Housing Market Assessment (SHMA) is a technical study that identifies housing need and demand to 2026 across the London Commuter Belt (East)/ M11 Sub-region.

What is a SHMA?

The SHMA was undertaken by ORS working with Savills on behalf of Brentwood, Broxbourne, East Herts, Epping Forest, Harlow and Uttlesford Councils. It is a strategic study that will inform the Council's affordable housing policies at a housing market area and district level in accordance with Planning Policy Statement 3: Housing (PPS3). Specifically the SHMA:

Estimates housing need and demand in terms of affordable and market housing
Determines how need and demand varies across the Sub-region
Considers future demographic trends and identifies the accommodation requirements of specific groups.

Further work is currently being undertaken to test the viability of the SHMA findings. Both the SHMA Viability Study and the SHMA itself will be used to inform the Council's affordable housing policies in the East Herts LDF (Core Strategy and Site Allocations DPDs) and for Housing Strategy purposes.

SHMA Main Report

Owing to the size of the final SHMA Report, it is available to view and download in 5 parts:

Part 1 [992kb]

Executive Summary

Part 2 [2Mb]

1 Introducing the Study
2 The Strategic Context
3 Identifying Local Housing Sub-Markets within the Sub-Region

Part 3 [2Mb]

4 Existing Dwelling Stock
5 Key Housing Market Drivers
6 Existing Households in Housing Need
7 Profiling Affordability

Part 4 [2Mb]

8 Housing Market Dynamics
9 Intermediate Affordable Housing and Local Incomes
10 Understanding Specific Sub-groups
11 Policy Issues and Implications Arising from the SHMA

Part 5 [727kb]

Appendix A: Stakeholder Consultation
Appendix B: Glossary of Terms
Appendix C: Recent Movers' Survey and Report

Housing Needs Assessment 2007

What is the Housing Needs Assessment?

The Council commissioned a Housing Needs Assessment in October 2006 in order to provide updated data on housing need in the Borough. The assessment was carried out by David Couttie Associates (DCA), an independent housing research consultancy, who have also completed similar studies for other Hertfordshire districts.

The Housing Needs Assessment included a postal survey, face-to-face interviews and web-based and paper-based research. The information gathered gives the Council important data about the number of people looking to move home within the next three years, the condition of people's current housing and the need for both open market and housing association homes in the future. The Assessment is therefore a very significant piece of research, underpinning key decisions in the housing and planning agendas for the next five years.

The Assessment was reported to the Community Services Committee on 5 June 2007. The Committee papers, including the Council's report on the Assessment, are available on the Community Services Committee page of this website

Using the data from the Housing Needs Assessment, DCA analysed supply and demand by location within the Borough to identify where there are likely shortfalls or surpluses of each property size in each location in the Borough. This report will be available shortly.

The previous Housing Needs Assessment was carried out in 2002.

If you would like more information, please contact the Council's Housing Policy and Project Manager on 01992 785521 or housing@broxbourne.gov.uk.