Local Housing Strategy
The Housing (Scotland) Act 2001 places a statutory duty for Local Authorities to produce a Local Housing Strategy (LHS) every five years supported by an assessment of housing provision including the need and demand for housing and related services. It is a requirement that the LHS must be submitted to Scottish Ministers, and that local authorities must keep their LHS under review.
On the 2nd of November 2023, Inverclyde Council’s Environment & Regeneration Committee approved the Inverclyde Local Housing Strategy (LHS) 2023-2028. Inverclyde’s LHS sets out the strategic direction, policies and plans that will enable Inverclyde Council and partners to deliver high quality housing and housing services to meet the needs of local people across all housing tenures. The LHS also sets out the important contribution that housing makes to enabling economic growth and regeneration, improving health and wellbeing, creating connected and sustainable places, reducing climate change and tackling poverty across Inverclyde.
For the Inverclyde area, there are a unique set of challenges when compared to the rest of Scotland including depopulation, a rapidly declining working age population, high levels of empty properties and areas of low housing demand. These are interlinked with the need for physical regeneration aligned to economic growth strategies and improvements in health and wellbeing. It is therefore vital that the vision and priorities within the LHS contribute towards delivering some of the major strategic objectives of Inverclyde. Co-produced with LHS delivery partners, stakeholders, local residents and communities, the 2023-2028 Local Housing Strategy vision for Inverclyde is that:
“Housing makes a strong contribution to ensuring Inverclyde is a place of choice, by delivering quality and affordable homes, a strong sense of community and a culture of wellbeing.”
Following extensive stakeholder engagement and upon review of national and local policy the following outcomes were identified.
LHS Outcome 1: People in Inverclyde live in quality homes in connected communities.
LHS Outcome 2: People in Inverclyde find it easier to access and sustain a home.
LHS Outcome 3: People in Inverclyde are supported to live independently and well at home.
LHS Outcome 4: People in Inverclyde live in good quality, carbon friendly and energy efficient homes which reduce fuel poverty.
Each LHS outcome will be delivered by focusing on the priority activities identified. The approved LHS can be accessed on the right of this page.
Consultation and Engagement
The LHS has been co-produced by Inverclyde Council’s Housing Strategy Team, Registered Social Landlord (RSL) partners, Inverclyde Health and Social Care Partnership (HSCP) including the Inverclyde Housing Options and Homelessness Advice Service and other key stakeholders. An extensive consultation and engagement programme was delivered to support development of the new LHS, offering a range of opportunities for local people, communities, and wider stakeholders to share their views on the most pressing housing challenges facing Inverclyde, as potential ideas for change and improvement.
As a result, a diverse network of partners, stakeholders and subject matter experts participated in developing the new Local Housing Strategy. Consultation processes successfully assembled a range of views, enabling feedback to systematically inform the LHS development.
An LHS development outcomes report, outlining stakeholder engagement in developing the LHS vision and outcomes can be accessed on the right of this page.
Housing Supply Targets
As part of the Glasgow City Region Housing Market Partnership, Inverclyde Council have recently completed a Housing Need & Demand Assessment (HNDA3) which provides a statistical estimate of how much additional housing will be required to meet all future housing need and demand in the area.
Scottish Government LHS Guidance (2019) directs local authorities to set housing supply targets for the area with a policy view informed by the HNDA estimate, of the number and type of dwellings that can realistically be delivered over the period of the LHS. The housing estimates produced by the HNDA provide the starting point for setting housing supply targets within the LHS.
When setting housing supply targets, the need for housing investment to realise Inverclyde’s wider ambitions for social and economic regeneration is also essential. A bold ‘policy on’ approach to setting targets which moves beyond demographic projections and reflects wider economic and placemaking strategies for Inverclyde is viewed as central to driving regeneration and has been the basis for setting the housing supply targets.
Therefore, taking the HNDA estimates, the Minimum All Tenure Housing Land Requirement and other economic and regeneration factors into account; an annual Housing Supply Target (HST) for Inverclyde has been set at 187 units per annum with a target of 75 affordable dwellings per annum and 112 market dwellings per annum.
A briefing paper detailing the full methodology for setting housing supply targets is available on the right of this page.