A Whitehall team looks set to call for a new framework for assessing housing demand to ensure that the demolition of new and unlet housing never happens again
Social Exclusion Unit deputy director Jon Bright has revealed the extent to which policy-making is being influenced by the bulldozing of brand new housing in Newcastle.

Speaking at a Housing Quality Network conference he suggested that the policy action team on unpopular housing is likely to call for a robust structure for assessing housing need which takes into account low demand.

Bright said: "We need a much more coherent national approach to future housing demand which will address not only additional housing requirements, but also areas of low demand."

He added: "This needs a framework of linked regional and sub-regional and local authority level housing and planning strategies so that we never again find ourselves in a position of having to demolish housing which has never been lived in."

His remarks come after the now infamous incident, first revealed in Housing Today, of North British HA being forced to demolition Dr Henry Russell in the West End of Newcastle (Housing Today issue 120).

The team on unpopular housing is also expected to call for social housing to be rebranded and for allocation policies to be opened up (Housing Today, issue 131).

Speaking at the same event, housing minister Hilary Armstrong disclosed that government research on low demand showed that in the north east and north west of the country around 23 per cent housing is either empty or difficult-to-let.

But she pointed out that in the south that figure was only 5 per cent. She said: "It is evident that to tackle the problems of low demand, a toolkit of responses for application at all levels is required."

Source

Housing Today