"Decency" is in fact what we already find across the country in both affordable and market sectors. Unassuming, cramped, boxes lined up cheek by jowl, with few facilities and every chance we will knock them down and start again in 20 years' time.
By all means let's have decency as a minimum standard for existing homes that – for the time being – we have no choice but to keep, but these are actually a small minority of the overall stock. A general call for decent homes seems in danger of letting too many people off the hook, and seems rather feeble compared to our European neighbours.
It allows housing associations to go through the charade of ticking off housing quality indicators while failing to engage a "decent" architect. It allows the Housing Corporation to get away with not appraising design quality before handing over large wads of public money. And it lets the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister and the Treasury off the hook in demanding the maximum level of outputs from an insufficient purse.
The most worrying element of a general goal of decent homes is that it smells very much of a "lowest cost" regime, not "best value"; of a minimum quality threshold rather than a genuine pursuit of value for money. That said, I do sense a welcome shift in government ambition with the housing market renewal programme and the emerging sustainable communities programme.
A general call for decent homes seems in danger of letting too many people off the hook. How many developing RSLs are really concerned with quality?
The Housing Corporation's new Challenge Fund is leading the way, designed to sort the wheat from the chaff and make public money far more conditional on quality. However, it is slightly worrying that the fund's guidelines stress cost reduction. Innovation may achieve cost efficiency but surely enhancing social value should be our primary objective?
At CABE, we want to set an aspiration for affordable housing that puts the UK among the best designers in the world – that all new affordable homes should be generous, functional, sustainable, comfortable, adaptable, contextual and good-looking. Drawing from the Dutch ambition of "permanent quality", we should be moving to a position where it is impossible, at least from the outside of the dwelling, to determine the provider or the occupant. In this country there are already developments like this, but they are the minority. In the Netherlands and Scandinavia they are the norm.
Over time, this will mean scrutinising the funding system, the scheme development standards and the housing quality indicator system, and asking whether they genuinely promote design quality. We also need to ask how many developing registered social landlords are concerned with the pursuit of quality. We know about the award winners, the likes of Places for People, Peabody and Ujima, but are they providing a respectable veneer for a much larger rump of mediocrity?
Traditionally, the sector has hidden behind the affordability argument. While CABE accepts that associations are often asked to cast a silk purse out of a sow's ear, we know there's more to it. We see two associations receiving the same levels of grant in the same area, one achieving excellence, the other settling for mediocrity. Why is this? And why is nothing done about it?
Source
Housing Today
Postscript
Jon Rouse is chief executive of the Commission for Architecture and the Built Environment
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