Housing supply is an issue that is rarely out of the media – an ageing population, immigration and a growing number of one-person households are all creating a need for more housing. Rising prices have also raised questions about how to provide housing that’s affordable for everyone.
But what are the figures behind the headlines? We’ve found that MPs and their constituents often want to know about the local picture when it comes to housing. With this in mind we’ve published a new interactive tool to help you compare local-level housing statistics. It’s a downloadable Excel file that lets you compare English local authorities on current housing stock and trends in new housing supply. The tool is designed to let you select and compare the areas and time periods you’re interested in, creating a customised output.
This blog shows you what you can do with the tool.
What type of housing is there in my area?
The tool allows you to look at housing stock by tenure type: you can see how many residential properties there are in your area, and of these how many are owned by local authorities, housing associations or private owners.
You can also view tenure as a percentage, useful for comparing areas of different sizes. The chart below shows how housing is split in two different areas of the country – Kingston upon Hull and Kingston upon Thames best task manager.
How many new homes have been built recently?
The tool lets you view recent trends in house building in your area. It also shows the total built by different developers – private enterprise, local authorities and housing associations.
What about new affordable housing?
You can also look at the amount of new affordable housing provided in your area. In this context, that means new homes intended to meet the needs of households who can’t afford full market prices.
The Government defines affordable housing with reference to the National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF). The NPPF says that affordable housing can be social rented, affordable rented (up to 80% of market rent) or intermediate (including other below-market rent levels and homes for sale). With our tool, you can see how many homes in each category were newly supplied in each year.
Compare multiple areas
You can download the tool Housing Supply for Local Authorities (England) here.
Our recent paper, What is affordable housing?, has more detail about the different types of affordable housing available and how affordability can be measured.
Picture credit: untitled, by David, Bergin, Emmett and Elliott; Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic (CC by 2.0)