Housing Needs Assessment 2006 - Westminster City Council

7. Backlog of existing need7.3 Migration and ‘in-situ’ solutionsThe survey has highlighted that 11,390 households are in unsuitable housing. However it is mostprobable that some of the unsuitability can be resolved in the households’ current accommodationand also that some households would prefer to move from the City in order to resolve their housingproblems.The extent to which ‘in-situ’ solutions might be appropriate is assessed in the Housing NeedsAssessment by asking respondents whether they thought they needed to move now. Any householdthat replied that it did need to move now was assumed not to have an in situ solution.ODPMGuide‘The extent to which in situ solutions could be feasible can be examined by asurvey…[using]…a judgement on whether the unsuitably housed main householdintends to move. Where this is the case, it may be taken to indicate that an in situsolution is not appropriate’. [Section 4.3 (page 56)]The survey data estimates that of the 11,390 households in unsuitable housing, 1,876 (or 16.5%)would need to move now to resolve their housing problems. Of the 1,876 households who need tomove now, those that stated that they would be likely to move out of the City were excluded fromfurther analysis. These amounted to 62 leaving a total of 1,814 who need to move within the City.7.4 AffordabilityUsing the affordability methodology set out in Chapter Six it is estimated that there are 1,488existing households that cannot afford market housing and are living in unsuitable housing (andrequire a move to different accommodation within the City). This represents 1.4% of all existinghouseholds in the City. The results reveal that 82.0% of households living in unsuitable housing(and needing to move now within the City) cannot afford market housing (1,488/1,876).The table below shows the tenure of the 1,488 households currently estimated to be in housingneed. The results show that Council and RSL tenants are most likely to be in housing need (3.7%and 3.6% respectively). Of all households in need, 60.6% currently live in social rentedaccommodation.PAGE 73