Housing Needs Assessment 2006 - Westminster City Council

Westminster – Housing Needs Assessment 2006CategoryTable 15.8 Key worker households and ability to afford housingAll key workerhouseholdsNumber ofhouseholds% ofhouseholdsKey workers moving innext five yearsNumber ofhouseholds% ofhouseholdsMarket housing 3,657 52.5% 1,032 69.6%Upper intermediate housing 185 2.7% 124 8.4%Mid-upper intermediate housing 605 8.7% 61 4.1%Mid-lower intermediate housing 1,114 16.0% 61 4.1%Lower intermediate housing 1,017 14.6% 181 12.2%Social rent only 393 5.6% 24 1.6%Total 6,972 100.0% 1,483 100.0%Source: City of Westminster Housing Needs Survey 2006The table indicates that 52.5% of all key worker households are able to afford entry-level prices inthe market. It is interesting to note that of the 3,315 households unable to afford minimum marketprices, 11.9% can only afford social rented housing, whilst 88.1% can afford intermediate housing.The profile of those key worker households who need/are likely to move in the next five years isslightly different. A larger proportion of these households are able to afford entry-level prices,however of those unable to afford the market, a lower proportion are only able to afford socialrented housing (5.3%). This subset of key worker households is more likely to be able to affordmarket housing than all key worker households principally because they are less likely to containchildren and therefore require a smaller property. Further analysis reveals that all key workerhouseholds able to afford market housing are also able to afford owner-occupation.The questionnaire asked households whether they were aware of a range of intermediate housingproducts, including key worker living schemes. The survey indicates that 79.9% of key workerhouseholds were aware of key worker living schemes, which is higher then the awareness of thisproduct amongst non-key worker households (39.4%).15.7 Key workers and the basic needs assessment modelIn addition to the above it is possible to study how key worker households fit into the Basic NeedsAssessment Model. The table below gives an estimate of how much of the housing will be from keyworkers and also an estimate of the likely supply to these households. The table shows there is anestimated net need for 45 dwellings per annum for key worker households. This figure represents0.8% of the total affordable requirement in the City.PAGE 142