Migration from North adds to projected future demand for housing in South East

This shows that projections suggesting the number of households in England is likely to increase by 3.8 million between 1996 and 2021 are credible. But changing internal migration patterns suggest a bigger share of the population and household increase will occur in the South than previously anticipated.

The study, by Alan Holmans of Cambridge University, a former Chief Housing Economist at the Department of the Environment, and Merron Simpson, Policy Officer at the Chartered Institute of Housing, follows evidence of falling demand for housing in some areas of the Midlands and North. It concludes that:

• There are no signs at national level of a fundamental shift in population levels that would call into question an estimated 4.1 million extra households between 1991 and 2016 - or a projected 3.8 million increase in households between 1996 and 2021.
• Population growth has been more heavily concentrated in the South during the mid-1990s than previously projected. Inward migrants from outside Britain move disproportionately to London and the South East, while net migration from the North of England to the South has risen sharply.
• A rise in the proportion of council tenants who move each year ('departure rates') has been concentrated in the North and, to a lesser extent, in the Midlands. A similar North-South contrast applies to the percentage of local authority and housing association properties that are vacant at any one time. However, there are wide variations in vacancy levels and departure rates across the North
• Private housebuilding in the North remains fairly strong and demand for new housing appears high, despite reports of 'unsaleable' older properties.
• Surpluses of 'unlettable' and 'unsaleable' homes - such as those highlighted in a recent JRF-funded study of North Manchester and Newcastle's West End - are a local problem in unpopular neighbourhoods where the supply of housing is greater than demand.

Alan Holmans said: "One plausible explanation for changes in internal migration during the mid-1990s is the rapid re-emergence of job opportunities in the South following the economic recession at the start of the decade. The resulting shift in demand for housing has led to increased departures and higher vacancies in local authority housing in the North and produced housing surpluses in the least popular neighbourhoods.

"None of this calls into question the national projections for household growth, or the estimates of housing need that have been derived from them. However, it can be anticipated that demand for housing will be greater than previously projected in the South East, where building costs and land prices are higher and objections to new house building are stronger."

Richard Best, Director of the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, said: "The revised projections have been interpreted as easing the pressures on greenfield sites. But this research shows that the pressures in the South East are not going to diminish at all. All the reductions in demand come from less pressurised regions in the North."

David Butler, Chief Executive of the Chartered Institute of Housing said: "Unless more can be done to redress the imbalance in regional economies, social housing landlords will continue to struggle with the problem of low demand in the North, while the pressure for new housing development in the South continues."