Housing Needs Assessment 2006 - Westminster City Council

12. Balancing housing markets12. Balancing housing markets12.1 IntroductionA ‘Balancing Housing Markets’ (BHM) assessment looks at the whole local housing market,considering the extent to which supply and demand are ‘balanced’ across tenure and property size.The notion has been brought into prominence by the work of the Audit Commission in assessingcouncils’ performance (Comprehensive Performance Assessment (CPA) of Local authorities).The Audit Commission specification for assessing the balancing of housing markets (AuditCommission March 2003) sets out three broad questions for the assessment:i) How well does the Council understand its housing market and from its understanding hasthe Council developed the right proposals to help balance the housing market?ii) What are the Council’s actions and what outcomes has it achieved in helping to balancehousing markets?iii) How well does the Council monitor its progress and impact in helping to balance housingmarkets and how effectively does this feed into future strategy and plans?This chapter outlines and applies a BHM analysis, which can assist the Council in fulfilling theabove objectives. Data concerning supply and demand within different tenures allows aconsideration of the extent to which the local housing market in the City of Westminster isbalanced. It is worth noting however that the City of Westminster is part of a wider London housingmarket and is not a self-contained market. The City itself also has a particular role to play as it is atthe centre of a World City.Whilst one of the outputs of the BHM model is an estimate of the shortfall of affordable housing,this should not be taken as an estimate of the absolute need for such housing. As the BHM is ademand and aspiration driven model (the BNAM being mainly based on past trends) there areinevitably some households who have a demand for affordable housing but under the BNAM wouldnot be considered as needing such housing. Additionally as the bulk of the supply in the BHM isbased on expected future household moves it is often the case that this model shows a lower supplylevel than the trend data of the BNAM (typically drawn from HSSA).PAGE 111