This section of the site provides information on housing and planning in Somerset.
Having warm, decent and affordable housing is a major element of a person’s wellbeing. As in most parts of the country, Somerset faces the challenge posed by an expanding population, particularly at the older end of the age spectrum.
Key issues for Somerset:
The Government’s welfare reforms could also lead to tenants facing greater financial difficulties and ultimately eviction. The Hinkley Point nuclear power station development is likely to have a significant impact on the availability of private sector accommodation and rent levels and may increase homelessness applications.
The Government's National Policy Planning Framework (NPPF) requires each local authority to undertake a Strategic Housing Market Assessment (SHMA) as part of the evidence base required to inform Local Plans. A SHMA seeks to assess the long term need and affordability of housing in the area. The latest SHMA for Somerset was published in October 2016.
The SHMA will also inform the new Somerset Strategic Housing Framework, due to be published in 2018. The Somerset Strategic Housing Framework 2013-2016 is available here.
Housing comprised a substantial section within the 2013/14 Joint Strategic Needs Assessment (JSNA) Summary, published in March 2014. This section, featuring a more detailed summary of the housing-related issues affecting health and wellbeing in Somerset, is available below.
Note also that the 2011 Joint Strategic Needs Assessment had a section devoted to Housing with more facts, figures and insight.
Somerset Strategic Housing Group (SSHG)
The Somerset Strategic Housing Group is a long-standing group of officers representing Strategic Housing across each of the five District Councils. It also includes representation from the Registered Providers (as represented by Knightstone Housing) and Somerset County Council's Public Health and Adults and Health Commissioning departments.
SSHG provides a strategic steer for the Local Housing Authorities and housing providers and ensures that work is 'joined up' across the county. Recent and current work being delivered or commissioned through this group includes:-
Somerset West Landlord and Tenant Services (SWeLT)
The SWeLT partnership was established in 2011 with the principal aim of working collectively across the Somerset West areas (incorporating the districts of Sedgemoor, Taunton Deane and West Somerset) seeking new and innovative ways of securing good quality, affordable private rented properties for people in housing need.
The partnership includes several key departments who work together to provide a comprehensive Tenancy Support Service for local landlords and tenants. This inludes the popular Landlord Accreditation Scheme, empty homes services with loans and grants, housing standards and housing options and advice teams.
The 2011 Census showed that a greater proportion of households are in private rented accommodation than was the case ten years earlier. Increasingly, Housing Options and Advice are looking towards the Private Rented Sector (PRS) as a realistic means of providing housing. In 2012/13, there were nearly twice as many homeless or potentially homeless households housed in the PRS by SWeLT than were accommodated by Registered Providers (previously known as Housing Associations).
A range of services have been set up to support and assist those in housing need, including:-
Homefinder Somerset
Homefinder Somerset is a partnership of the five housing authorities and over 25 social housing providers in Somerset. The partnership has been in operation since December 2008 and has successfully housed over 14,000 applicants from the housing register.
It has a well established governance structure with a working group for landlords and local authority operational staff ,and a monitoring board where the overall performance of the choice-based letting (CBL) scheme and the combined allocation policy are monitored.
The scheme allows landlords to advertise 100% of their nominations through the system, and the vast majority of landlords do advertise all vacancies, to the benefit of applicants on the common housing register.
There has been a big increase since 2001 in the number of residents with a Level 4 (e.g., Bachelor degree) or above qualification. There are now more people qualified to at least Level 4 (25.6%) than people with no qualifications (22.4%). - 2011 Census