Housing Supply and Housing
Outcomes
Glen Bramley
Seminar in Honour of Alan Holmans
LSE
7 December 2015
g.bramley@hw.ac.uk
Contents
1.0
2.0
3.0
4.0
Alan’s Distinctive Contributions
Household Projections in Planning
Economic Models and Planning
Towards an Outcomes Approach
Housing Supply and Housing Outcomes
1.0 Reflections on Alan Holmans’ Contribution
• Particular Contributions of Value
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Consistent attempts to present a picture of national housing requirements
Careful documentation of what constitutes housing need within UK policy and
practice
Building an evidence base through surveys
Raising awareness of the significance of demographic trends and processes e.g.
marriage, divorce, cohabitation
Empirically grounded attempts to estimate the scale of demographic processes
which may be of significance for the housing market
Resisting the temptations of reductionist economic models
A real historical perspective, reinforced by valuable compilation of long term data
series
Housing Supply and Housing Outcomes
2.0 Household Projections in Planning
• Household projections remain central in planning for new
housing – but this is problematic
• Projections remain key in planning process under NPPG, as they have been
since 1970s
• Also central in AH’s approach to assessing need for social housing
• But failure of projections to acknowledge economic processes underlying
household growth causes several problems
- ‘circularity’ of process, leading to persistent underprovision in high demand
areas
- getting out of phase with the cycle
- inappropriate assignment of housing numbers between (sub-)regions
• In practice, adherence to projections is leading some authorities with high
demand and growth potential to set targets which are too low (compounded by
baffling results of recent projections)
Housing Supply and Housing Outcomes
2.1 Feedback from Supply to Household Growth
140%
120%
100%
80%
60%
North
Midlands
South
London
40%
20%
England
0%
2010 2015 2020 2025 2030 2035 2040 2045
-20%
Illustrative scenario of large scale increase in new housing supply across England, using Sub-Regional
Housing Market Model which includes endogenous household formation and internal migration. %
increase in household growth over % increase in new housing supply by broad region.
3.0 Economic Models and Planning
• New paradigm around affordability fails to fly
• There has been significant development of economic models
of housing market and effects of planning, in UK as in US
• Barker (2004) Review led to enshrining of ‘affordability’ as
key criterion in planning
• Meen’s ‘affordability model’ was used to support
recommendations for enhanced supply through regional
planning process up to 2010
• But, as argued in my 2013 paper in Town Planning Review,
this approach did not gain wide acceptance
• Policy changes since 2010, particularly ‘localism’,
undermined this, alongside impacts of crisis/recession
• Still a lack of capacity to use sub-regional forecasting to test
outcomes arising from different supply plans
• Current treatment of ‘market signals’ in planning inquiry
process is tokenistic and uninformed by economic models
Housing Supply and Housing Outcomes
4.0 Towards an Outcomes Approach
• So how should we approach the problem of housing
requirements?
• In my view, instead of deriving a single ‘need’ number from a
projection, we should focus more on a range of outcomes
and their relationship with supply
• These outcomes include affordability, tenure change,
housing needs, housing-related poverty, economic growth
and employment, housing & n’hood quality
• We should develop the capacity to forecast outcomes
conditional on different level and mix of supply and other
contextual & policy conditions
• There are prototype models but these are not widely used
and need further development
• Government should support LAs more in terms of data and
modelling
• There is a case for an independent body to advise and
adjudicate, perhaps linked to OBR/MPC
Housing Supply and Housing Outcomes
4.1 Illustration of Outcomes Approach
• What are the chances of a household in need getting access
to social housing?
18.0%
16.0%
14.0%
North
12.0%
Midlands
10.0%
South
8.0%
London
6.0%
England
4.0%
2.0%
0.0%
2011
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2021Base 2021HiSR
2031
2031HiSR
Illustrates one quite useful combined outcome benchmark, under baseline forecast and ‘high
social housing supply’ (+70,000 pa)
In base period, chances much poorer in London & South, but not great in Mids & North
By 2031, in baseline, 3 regions worse.
High social rented supply improves outcomes markedly in all regions, esp South, tho’ London
still worse.
Housing Supply and Housing Outcomes
References
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Bramley, G. & Watkins, D. (2015) 'Housebuilding, demographic change and affordability as outcomes
of local planning decisions; exploring interactions using a sub-regional model of housing markets in
England‘, Progress in Planning . E-published July 2015.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.progress.2014.10.002
Glen Bramley & David Watkins (2014) ‘A sub-regional housing market model for England with
endogenous migration and household formation: its role in assessing the adequacy of planned new
housing’ : British Society for Population Studies Conference, Winchester; Demographic projections
and forecasts Session: - Wednesday 10 September 9.00am. Contact g.bramley@hw.ac.uk
Bramley, G. (2013) ‘Housing Market Models and Planning’, Town Planning Review, Special Issue on
‘Planning and Housing Markets’, TPR, 84 (1) 2013 doi:10.3828/tpr.2013.2
Bramley, G., & Watkins, D. (2014) ‘Measure twice, cut once’ – revisiting the strength and impact of
local planning regulation of housing development in England’, Environment & Planning B: Planning
and Design, 41, doi:10.1068/b39131.
Bramley, G. (2015) ‘Pushing on String: Demand and Supply’, Built Environment. 41:2, 144-165
(Special Issue: ‘Meeting the Housing Challenge: British Experience, European Lessons’).
Bramley, G. (2015) ‘Housing need outcomes in England through changing times: demographic,
market and policy drivers of change’, Housing Studies, e-published October 2015,
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/02673037.2015.1080817
Bramley, G., Pawson, H., Pleace, N., Watkins, D. & White, M. (2010) Estimating Housing Need. DCLG
Research Report. Contact g.bramley@hw.ac.uk