Priorities for Reform of Social Housing in Inner Cities

Author: James Morris, Dr Tim Leunig, Cllr Stephen Greenhalgh, John Moss and Cllr Ian Rowley   |   30/03/2009

Establishing priorities for reform of social housing ? particularly within inner city areas – is crucial to addressing some of the most intractable social problems which characterize some areas of our inner cities today. It is a policy area which has some tensions and some areas of consensus. Stephen Greenhalgh and John Moss argue strongly in their piece that social housing policy has been dominated by an obsession with the quantity of housing that needs to be built to ‘meet housing needs’. They argue that there needs to be fundamental and radical reform to ensure that it is possible to create mixed communities rather than the ‘ghettoes of multiple deprivation’ which currently characterize some of our inner city estates.
Tim Leunig argues, in his piece, that the key problem with the current system is its rigidity. He argues for policies which would allow for this greater mobility of social housing tenants. Ian Rowley also argues for increased flexibility in the system, in addition to shorter tenancy lengths. Matthew Groves argues that much of current government policy is against the spirit of localism. Much of government policy in this area, he argues, is centrally prescriptive leaving little scope for local authorities to manage their housing stock or make decisions about housing allocation which are more attuned to the needs and requirements of local residents. Stephen Greenhalgh and John Moss will be further elaborating on their ideas around social housing reform in a forthcoming Localis pamphlet.