Without better needs surveys, we will never know how much housing to build in the South.
The increase in the housing budget in the comprehensive spending review is welcome. So is the recognition that the planning system is currently more of an obstacle than an aid to delivery.

But the recent announcements on planning and housing by John Prescott raise as many questions as they answer.

Not forgetting that the increased investment is also intended to cover housing market renewal in areas of low demand and provide a decent home for all existing social housing tenants by 2010, the main focus of government statements has been on delivering more affordable housing in the South. But there is a striking lack of clarity on precisely how much additional affordable housing will be delivered – and where.

At last it seems the government has got the message that there is a connection between the lowest rate of housebuilding since 1924 and both the current extent of affordable housing needs and the ability to meet them.

There is a belated recognition that overall regional housing requirements set out in regional planning guidances, which themselves are set well below the likely levels of demand as indicated by household and demographic projections, need to be implemented.

Indifference and reluctance
There remains, however, an apparent indifference to achieving the indicative figures for affordable housing. For example, the South-east regional planning guidance calls for 18,000-19,000 additional affordable homes a year, while the South-west guidance calls for 6000-10,000.

There is also a marked reluctance to give any strategic direction as to what proportion of future affordable housing provision might be expected to be funded from public subsidy and how much from landowner/ developer subsidy through the section 106 planning negotiations.

For many years the government has eschewed any national estimates of affordable housing needs, despite criticism from various House of Commons select committee reports. The best estimates by Cambridge University are that the projected requirement for additional affordable housing over the period to 2016 runs at 85,000 dwellings a year – 60% of which needs to be in the South. At current rates of housebuilding more than half of all new housing would need to be affordable; but if housebuilding were to increase in step with demand, only a third would need to be affordable.

Snapshot surveys every seven years do not amount to the comprehensive, continuous assessment that is now required

There is at yet no official estimate but according to the Royal Institute of Chartered Surveyors, the rise in investment will pay for about 10,000 new affordable homes a year. This is a drop in the ocean compared with the current shortfall of around 60,000 affordable homes, particularly when continuing right-to-buy sales (53,000 homes last year) are taken into account.

The rationale for the distribution of the additional funding, both geographically and to different elements of the budget, is unclear. The government used to rely on the basket of indicators contained within the General Needs Index and Housing Needs Index . For all their technical flaws, in particular their poor relationship to housing markets, these indices lent a degree of objectivity and continuity.

Objective affordable housing needs assessment is not only relevant to the distribution of additional public funding but is fundamentally necessary to the successful negotiation of affordable housing from developers. PPG3 and Circular 6/98 place great store on local housing needs assessment.

Inconsistence and assumptions
Good practice guidance has been produced but in my experience there is such inconsistency among the different local authorities and the contractors that carry out structured housing needs surveys that it will be many years before the results could be accumulated with any more confidence than the numbers accepted as homeless or on housing lists across any particular region.

Even within the parameters of the good practice guidance such surveys, among other things, include different definitions of housing needs, use a range of survey techniques, rely on dubious income data and varying assumptions about people's behaviour, the operation of the housing market and supply constraints.

Very few authorities realise that carrying out intermittent snapshot surveys once every five to seven years does not amount to the comprehensive continuous housing needs assessment now required within the plan, to monitor and manage approach.

It is unrealistic to rely wholly on local needs assessments. At the very least the enhanced regional role, including the preparation of regional housing strategies, provides the opportunity for a more coherent overview.