Key updates available for future Highland house building and school roll forecasts

4th December 2018

The latest outlook for future housing delivery and school roll forecasts across Highland has been announced by the Highland Council today (Tuesday 4 December 2018).

The joint publication of the Housing Land Audit and School Roll Forecast provides up to date forecasts for housing delivery and school rolls across the Highland Council area and will be used to monitor, implement and share details of the actions needed to support future housing growth.

The documents are available on the council's website at the following links:

https://www.highland.gov.uk/downloads/file/20048/housing_land_audit_2018_summary

https://www.highland.gov.uk/downloads/download/1648/school_roll_forecasts_november_2018

These annual publications are aligned to provide accurate monitoring of infrastructure and development and allow the Council to prioritise capital investment decisions.

The Housing Land Audit 2018 is an assessment of the housing land supply available in the Highland Council area as at 1 June 2018. The audit sets out a programme of expected housing delivery over the initial 5 year period and the following 10 years and includes expectations for the delivery of new homes up to 2032. This year the Council has introduced a new "Storymap" presenting this information along with the interactive online tool which which makes it easier to view the information set out in the Housing Land Audit

https://highland.maps.arcgis.com/apps/MapSeries/index.html?appid=d926d0810bfa4688a8be082431c7f10e

Regularly updated house completions information is now available to view in a dashboard display format through the following link:

https://www.arcgis.com/apps/opsdashboard/index.html#/f827c80f82364d7b82ba5eca454f9f5e

This gives access to the latest reported information on Highland-wide housing delivery.

The main findings are that the existing planned developments provide an adequate supply of available housing land across the Highland area. The publication follows a consultation earlier in the year which invited responses from developers, landowners, Housing Associations, public agencies and the public to help identify more accurate and realistic forecasts of housing delivery, and the timing of supporting infrastructure.

The School Roll Forecasts identify the expected pupil rolls for each of the primary and secondary schools across Highland over the next 15 years. The forecasts, which are updated annually, incorporate a wide range of factors including the programmed rate of housing development (from the Housing Land Audit), population changes and school placing requests. These are used to identify school roll pressures and capacity issues in future years, and are a key element in the prioritisation of capital investment in schools.

The Council is also intending to use the information in these audit documents to publish its first Delivery Programme for Caithness and Sutherland as well as an updated version for the Inner Moray Firth area. These Delivery Programmes will be used to coordinate investment in development and infrastructure and will be reviewed and amended on an ongoing basis. A Delivery Programme for the West Highland and Islands will be published next year.

Councillor Allan Henderson, Chair of the Council's Environment, Development and Infrastructure Committee said: "The alignment of these publications provides the Council with detailed and up to date information on where development will happen and what infrastructure is needed. This will allow us to better plan for Council services and the school estate for the future to support communities."