Housing shortage in Scotland: FOI release

Information requested

1) Have you calculated how many houses (of all tenures) are needed in Scotland to solve the widely acknowledged housing shortage in the country?

• If yes, what is the number, and how did you calculate it?
• If no, why not?

2) Any other comments to make.

Response

1) The Scottish Government has not undertaken an all tenure assessment of the number of homes- required across Scotland. Local authorities have statutory responsibility for housing, including the requirement to assess all tenure housing need and demand to inform their Local Housing Strategies and Local Development Plans.

We do, however, publish quarterly housing statistics reporting the actual number of all sector new build homes across Scotland by local authority area: https://www.gov.scot/publications/housing-statistics-forscotland-new-house-building/

The Scottish Government have committed to delivering 110,000 high quality, energy efficient affordable homes by 2032 and works closely with a wide range of housing partners, including local authorities, to support the delivery of affordable homes across Scotland.

2) National Planning Framework 4 provides a Minimum All-Tenure Housing Land Requirement (MATHLR) for each planning authority in Scotland. The figure is expressed as housing units and is alltenure but it is about the amount of land needed. The MATHLR meets the statutory requirement in the Planning Act. All the information relating to the figures are publicly available online on the transforming planning website.

The MATHLR figures are set out in Annex E of NPF4.

There is a specific page on housing matters for NPF4. It contains documents that explain how the figures were reached, including an Explanatory Report (and Addendum) and input from each planning authority or regional grouping and Assessment Reports, as well information on the initial methodology consultation and input from the Housing Advisory Panel.

About FOI

The Scottish Government is committed to publishing all information released in response to Freedom of Information requests. View all FOI responses at http://www.gov.scot/foi-responses.