Teignbridge Reduce Housing Targets by 32% since 2010 #NPPF – The Laughable Results when Cllrs do Forecasts

Teignbridge consulted on  Plan Teignbridge, between January and March this year, determined a need for 14,800 new homes over 20 years from 2013-2033. This was based on a previous Strategic Housing Market Assessment (SHMA) produced in 2010.

As you might expect in Devon this produced some opposition and so ‘Opinion Research Services’ were hired to produce update the 2010 study (which covered the wider Exeter City and Sub region), with new analysis using the latest ONS data of the earlier interviews, this recommended 12,400 homes over 20 years, an Overview and Scrutiny Committee tasked to review it instead rejected its recommendations and opted for the suspiciously round figure of 10,000 units over 20 years.

A powerpoint presentation by four cllrs on the scrutiny committee asks:

Do we really need 12,400 new homes ? –more than double last 5 years completion rate

They consider that with the latest ONS migration numbers the ORS figures are too high.

But they seem to have made a number of very basic errors in their amateurish assessment.

Firstly as the ORS study says:

The number of migrant persons leaving Torbay for Teignbridge has fallen in recent years. However, the number of migrants leaving Teignbridge for Torbay has risen in recent in the past two years. It is difficult to claim this as a long-term trend, but the increased migration to Torbay may reflect housing pressures in Teignbridge.

It is also noteworthy that recent dwelling completions in Teignbridge have average 354 units per annum, well below the growth identified in any set of household projection. It is difficult to ascertain with confidence, but this low level of dwelling delivery may have played a role in the slight rise in the number of people leaving Teignbridge as households struggle to compete in the local housing market with in-migrants.

In looking at one small area and not the entire housing market, and by failing to reconcile the flow data both within the region and nationally the Cllrs have committed many classic demographic & statistical cock ups (such as interesting a fall in a response rate of 6 to 4 over a five year survey as statistically significant, the list goes on and on and on)  which will likely be torn apart at the EiP, if the plan ever gets to submission with this silly number.  In particular the Cllrs from their presentation did not seem to understand the difference between household formation and population forecasting (adding households and population together in one rotfl slide)  and projected that the economy and housing market would continue to flatline for the next 20 years!!!

This case like so many others shows how dodgy interpretation of data under ‘localism’ is not substitute for rational allocation of housing numbers across a housing market sub area.  Indeed where is the duty to coperate agreements with all the other authorities now expected to take the changes in migrations assumptions from the RSS.  670 units for example with London would go down by around 127, have they got signed agreement with the Mayor of London under the Duty to Cooperate for the extra housing 270 housing units needed in London from the people in London who will no longer move to Teignbridge because Local Cllrs want to build nearly a 1/3rd less housing?  And so it goes with dozens of other LPAs  What is every authority in the country did this?  Believe me many are trying.

The Cllrs reject the ORS study as unsound (despite endorsing it only months ago – because its ‘complex formula’ is not transparent.

Here is the ORS formula

Housing Requirement =Housing Supply =Net Housing Requirement =Established Households +New Households +In-migrant Households
Housing Supply =Established Households +Household Dissolution +Out-migrant Households
New Housing Requirement=Gross Housing Requirement -Housing Supply

All rather simple but a little too complicated for these 4 cllrs who instead did their own back of the enveleope calculation without any proper balancing of stocks and flows, attempting to forecast foreward the great recession by 20 years and ingnoring evidence that shifts in migration is due to local housing becoming less affordable due to squeezed local budgets rather than more.

The biggest problem though is trying to make accurate predictions from the new ONS hyperlocal migration assumptions, that simply doesn’t work.  They are based on GP registrations and  many migrants wont register with a GP, especailly if it is a second home.