Say No to the Government's Unrealistic “One Size Fits All” Proposals to calculate Housing Need – Say Yes to Truly Affordable Housing where it is needed.

The new Government’s housing and planning reforms propose to scrap the old “Standard Methodology” for calculating housing need and replace it with an over simplified calculation based on current housing stock.

Previously, the Standard Methodology was based on outdated 2014 ONS (Office for National Statistics) population projections. It had been hoped that the new Government’s planning reforms would use more realistic and up-to-date population projections based on the 2021 Census, thus targeting homes in areas where they are actually needed.

Unfortunately, the new Government’s Planning Proposals base the new Standard Method on the current housing stock of the area. This overly simplistic method means that 90% of Local Authority areas, outside of London, will see an increase in their Local Housing Need figure putting green spaces at massively increased risk.

69% of Local Authorities’ will see an increase of over 200 homes per annum. Bizarrely, London, which has arguably the worst housing shortage in the country, will see its Local Housing Need Figure DROP by over 18,000 homes per annum.   

A spreadsheet called “Outcome of the proposed revised method” detailing the change in the Local Housing Need proposed for each Local Authority can be found via this link: 

https://www.gov.uk/government/consultations/proposed-reforms-to-the-national-planning-policy-framework-and-other-changes-to-the-planning-system

This is combined with the Government’s proposal to redefine “weakly performing” Green Belt as “Grey Belt”, which would mean that previously undeveloped Green Belt could then be developed.

In addition,  its lack of proposals, to date, to redefine “Affordable Housing” means that if it is not redefined in the future, Developers will be targeting Green Belt to build houses that will STILL BE UNAFFORDABLE TO MOST. (Currently “Affordable” is defined as 80% of Local Market Value – so still unaffordable to the majority of people in need of housing)

At a time of a Climate and Ecological emergency, we call on Angela Rayner to abandon the Government’s proposals to impose this ill-thought-out, mandated, arbitrary, unfairly-allocated, ‘one-size-fits-all’ strategy, prepared in haste, encouraged by the land-owning and developer sectors which will have devastating impacts on our environment.  

We fear that the Government’s ill-thought-out plans will only continue helping Developers building the most profitable homes that those in most need cannot afford by destroying precious green spaces, which are so important for food production, wildlife and to mitigate against climate change.

The Government's proposals would encourage Developers to avoid regenerating the most deprived areas and continue to “cherry-pick” the most profitable sites whilst building houses still unaffordable to most.

We, the undersigned, call on Angela Rayner to abandon these Housing Need calculation proposals and to use a Standard Method for calculating Housing Need based on the most up-to-date population projections so encouraging builders to build TRULY AFFORDABLE housing where it is most needed.

We also call On Angela Rayner to redefine “Affordable Housing” to ensure that the definition enables the delivery of TRULY AFFORDABLE homes that the majority CAN afford.