Housing Need and Demand Assessment (HNDA) A Managers Guide (2026)

Resourcing

8.1 As an important element of both the housing and land use planning framework, local authorities should ensure that the HNDA process is adequately resourced.

8.2 The HNDA Guidance has been designed to reduce the time required to source data and perform the necessary calculation of housing need and to afford more time for consideration and consultation on the HNDA outputs and the choice of scenarios/ alternative futures that a local authority wishes to model.

8.3 HNDA’s are expected to be resourced appropriately to ensure that they are completed and agreed in good time to allow them to form part of the evidence-base for the LHS and LDP. The timing and sequencing of the HNDA, LHS and LDP is crucial.

8.4 To assist local authorities, city regions and national parks undertake their HNDA in a proportionate and meaningful way, the Scottish Government has developed an HNDA Tool. The Tool estimates the amount and likely tenure of additional future housing. It uses national data as a starting point but authorities may use local data if they wish. The Tool also allows partnerships to run their own scenarios based on a range of assumptions (demographic and economic). Where local evidence is used it must be robust and this should be explained in the HNDA write-up.

8.5 A key aim of the Tool is to save local resources and time, affording local authorities more time to discuss, agree and understand the implications resulting from the analysis.