Housing Needs Assessment 2006 - Westminster City Council

8. Newly arising need8. Newly arising need8.1 IntroductionIn addition to the Backlog of existing needs discussed so far in this report there will be newlyarising need. This is split, as per ODPM guidance, into three main categories (there is a fourth ‘exinstitutional’population – results for this group have been included in the figures for new householdformation). These are as follows:1. New households formation (× proportion unable to buy or rent in market)2. Existing households falling into need3. In-migrant households unable to afford market housingThe guidance also suggests that each of these should be calculated on an annual basis. Thefollowing sections deal with each of these points in detail.8.2 New household formationThe estimate of the number of newly forming households in need of affordable housing is based onan assessment of households that have formed over the past two years. Such an approach ispreferred to studying households stating likely future intentions as it provides more detailedinformation on the characteristics of these households contributing to this element of newly arisingneed. This method is also consistent with comments in ODPM Guidance:‘A… reliable approach to this issue is to base the profile of new households on thecharacteristics of identified newly forming households in the recent past’.ODPMGuide‘Stage 9 in the basic needs assessment model… involves estimating the proportionof newly forming households who will be unable to afford to access housing in theprivate market’.‘It is recommended that the primary basis for assessing the income and householdtype profile of new households is the profile of actual new households formed overthe period preceding the survey’. [Section 4.4 (pages 61 & 62)]The table below shows details of the derivation of new household formation. The table begins byestablishing the number of newly forming households over the past two years (from within theCity). The data excludes households moving to owner-occupation because these households at thetime of the move (which is when we are interested in) could afford market housing. Households intied accommodation have also been excluded. An affordability test is then applied to the remaininghouseholds.PAGE 79