An analysis of strategic housing market assessment as an evidence for the UK local housing planning

Local planning authorities in the UK are facing serious challenges regarding housing supply. Under such background, Strategic Housing Market Assessment (SHMA) was introduced to provide the main evidence for local housing planning and policy, by objectively accessing local housing need, especially affordable housing need. Local planning authorities are supposed to conduct SHMAs regularly to ensure that housing policy is based on objectively assessed needs. However, previous studies have shown that key questions remain about SHMAs’ effectiveness. Meanwhile, the last two decade has seen great progress in Evidence-based Policymaking (EBPM). Since SHMAs provide the main evidence for local housing policy, it is necessary to evaluate how robust the current SHMAs are. This research explores the methodological robustness of SHMAs, namely the transparency and adequacy of the method and data used to assess housing need, by reviewing the most up-to-date SHMAs and making comparisons with previous versions. As results, we have three findings. First, opacities remain surrounding the research methods and data sources. Second, regarding the specific way of assessing housing need, most SHMAs assess current housing need based on housing register data and future housing need based on household projection data. Third, the methodological weaknesses pointed out by previous studies are no longer common in the current SHMAs. However, there are still concerns regarding forecasting future housing need based on household projection, since housing is a market-based system driven by interactions of many economic and social factors.