ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the general topic of the ‘need for housing’ - in other words, the requirement for new housing. It considers the formal framework within which the strategy for meeting the new housing requirement is framed. Housing development is associated with economic growth, and carries with it complex infrastructure requirements such as transport, schools, and so on. The official approach to determining the scale of housing provision in individual Local Plans and unitary development plan has two key characteristics: it is demographically based, and it is usually described as being ‘top- down’. The planning process starts with national population projections, which are produced at about two-yearly intervals. The 1992-based projections in the Green Paper show significantly faster household growth than the previous 1989-based projections. The South East is the area under most pressure, and is also the area of greatest complexity, with, historically, a dozen constituent parties in the shape of the county planning authorities.
