PfSH prepared a Strategic Housing Market Assessment (SHMA) for the PfSH area (excluding the Isle of Wight) over 2013/14. Every local planning authority is required to demonstrate how it will meet an appropriate share of the housing need in its housing market area and to plan positively for the delivery of sufficient new homes to support future prosperity in its area. To support ongoing work on local plans, PfSH commissioned the preparation of a new SHMA in May 2013. A copy of the PfSH covering report considered at the 28 January 2014 Joint Committee which set out the process undertaken (and the start of reviewing the South Hampshire Strategy) can be accessed here.
Compiled by GL Hearn Limited, this independent evidence base provides projections of housing need to 2036 in the two housing market areas, focused on Portsmouth and Southampton, in South Hampshire. It responds to Government policy that local planning authorities should work together to undertake such assessments of their housing needs and plan to meet them across each housing market area where this is consistent with achieving sustainable development. The study provides an up-to-date and objective assessment of the housing market in south Hampshire in 2013, setting out the current context and projections of the need for affordable and market housing to 2036. The report also outlines the different factors affecting the individual authorities within PfSH and considers the need and demand for housing of different type, size and tenure. The South Hampshire SHMA provides essential background information for those authorities preparing local plans and the evidence of our fulfilment of the ‘duty to cooperate’.
Taking into account latest Government guidance, the consultants identified a housing need for the PfSH area (excluding the Isle of Wight) of 4,160 homes per year to 2036. A significant factor is that there is a degree of suppressed housing demand in the current market. This is in part linked to the recession, the weakness of the housing market and difficulties in obtaining mortgage finance over recent years.
The SHMA is not policy in itself but forms a part of the evidence base that will help the PfSH local planning authorities in the review of the spatial strategy for the area to 2036. The SHMA will act as a building block for further work which will necessarily take into account housing demand and deliverability, environmental constraints, transport pressures, land availability and supply considerations as well as the feasibility of delivering infrastructure to support housing development.
The PfSH local authorities have now brought together the evidence in the SHMA with a range of other factors to consider what level of development should be planned for across the PfSH area and in its different parts. This included detailed joint work to assess the availability of land that can sustainably accommodate development, environmental constraints and impacts, economic development and employment analysis, along with infrastructure capacity and consideration of what new infrastructure is needed. This is set out in the PfSH Spatial Position Statement. The SHMA 2014 can be found on our Position Statement page, as can the update of the assessment which was undertaken in June 2016 and was noted at the Joint Committee on 7 June 2016.