45126-Invest. Qual-No111

Investment in Qualityrelated problems which must be addressed to deliver a sustainablehousing market. These include supply and demand balance,affordability, urban sprawl and single dwellings.Housing demand is determined not only by price but also bydemographic change, immigration and changes in the patterns ofhousehold formation. Demand is also driven by rising employmentand incomes, but tempered by the affordability of dwellings, whichincludes elements other than price alone, and which may impact onhousehold formation behaviour.Social and affordable housing represents the single largestinfrastructure component of the National Development Plan (NDP).The NDP proposed to increase the local authority housing stock byabout 35,500 over the 2000-2006 period, to substantially expandvoluntary housing activity from 500 to 4,000 units per year and toprovide up to 2,000 units per year under the local authority affordablehousing scheme and shared ownership schemes (NESC, 1999).The target for local authority completions and acquisitions wassubsequently raised to 41,500 by the Government in June 2000. Thetable below examines progress in 2000 and 2001 against thesetargets with the interim local authority targets being based on theearlier total target of 35,500.Preliminary evidence 2 would suggest some further progress towardstargets in the first six months of 2002 with 1,468 local authorityhouses completed, a rise of 13 per cent over the same period in 2001and 383 houses acquired by local authorities during the first sixmonths. There were some 7,916 houses in progress, as opposed to7,486 at the end of 2001. In addition, voluntary housing completionshave risen from 514 to 630, a 22 percentage point rise over thesame period in 2001. The total target under the Economic andSocial Infrastructure Operational Programme is due to rise by only5.5 per cent to 8,750 units in 2002.2. Based upon the second quarter data contained in the Housing StatisticsBulletin, June 2002452