From Need to Affordability: An Analysis of UK Housing Objectives

Recent housing policy debates in the UK have shifted away from discussion of housing need to more market-oriented analyses of affordability. This article discusses the principles that lie behind the concepts of need and affordability and the ways in which they have been defined. It then traces the development of policy and debate in the UK with respect to both need and affordability. In particular it discusses the different ways in which policy is specified in different tenures and the extent to which implementation depends upon administrative allocation mechanisms. It concludes that up to the present time the shift in emphasis is more one of rhetoric than of reality and, more fundamentally, that the forms in which current policies are implemented bear very little relationship to those suggested by analysis of basic principles.