OVERTON needs another 160 affordable houses within the next three years to meet demand, residents have heard.

John Lancaster, housing enabling officer for Community Action Hampshire, revealed the number at the village's annual parish meeting, where he was a guest speaker. The figure has been established following an extensive rural housing needs survey, which surveyed all 1,700 households in Overton.

Of the 30 per cent (514) that responded, at least 160 households, comprising 273 people, had unmet housing needs.

Of these households, 40 of them need rehousing now and 56 within three years. Some 30 per cent were keyworkers.

"Young adults are in greatest need," he said. "Single adults and couples without children make up 89 per cent of those in need. The greatest need is for one or two bedroom accommodation with a high request for flats, which is quite unusual for a large rural village.

"People have an image of those with housing needs sleeping in doorways - this is not the case.

"They are people who want to leave home, those living in short term, overcrowded accommodation or those who have left the parish because of the lack of housing and rising house prices."

He said 90 per cent would satisfy the local selection criteria but 'the great majority' were not on the borough housing register for 'a variety of reasons'.

"The only way to address the unmet housing need is to specifically allocate land outside the development plan for affordable housing for local people," he said.

"From the evidence of the survey, a programme of building to meet the minimum level of unmet housing need of 100 homes for rent, 30 for shared ownership and 30 low-cost homes to buy should be proposed for local people in the next three years."