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

What geography should the HNDA cover?

5.1 It is for local authorities to decide the geographic level at which HNDAs should be undertaken. The HNDA should be undertaken at a geography that reflects how the local housing market functions and the spatial arrangements required to support LHSs and LDPs.

5.2 The HNDA can be undertaken by individual local authorities or jointly by groups of local authorities working together as city regions. In both cases, the HNDA should be supported by both housing and planning officials. The HNDA should reflect the functional Housing Market Area (HMA) within the area as well as presenting outputs at a local authority level. The HNDA Tool can only output results at HMA level as many of the data inputs are not disaggregated to smaller geographics.

5.3 Where all or part of a National Park boundary is within the area of the HNDA, information relating to this area should be identified separately to enable it to be used by the National Park authority to help decide how much additional housing may be required within the park and how much land should be made available. Of particular significance will be information relating to the current housing supply as well as existing and future need and demand.