Power shift

Duncan Maclennan, John McLaren
Rising, but stubbornly unequal, incomes and growing household numbers will sustain demand and put pressure on the housing system. Pressures and imbalances will be evident regionally and locally. The South will still be growing faster than the North, and cities in all regions will recover while poorer quality, suburban markets become more problematic.

Housing pressures will create an emphasis on "quality" issues within the market sector (in contrast to the social housing). Less popular northern localities will decline and eventually be abandoned. There will also be overcrowding in owner-occupied "slums" in the South.

Affordability issues will permeate the lives of middle income households, except where family wealth supports new owners. Affordability and quality issues may hamper Britain's ability to attract the migrant workers that the economy needs.

New structures of government and governance will have to cope with these divergent, market-driven, localised problems. European Union membership will mean pressure to achieve a more stable housing market, but the EU will continue to ignore housing and leave policy-making to member nations.

Whitehall will focus increasingly on a stable housing market policy framework and benefits system reform, but is likely to only grasp possibilities for taxing housing gains as the elderly dependent population expands.

Allocation of resources to the regions will become an increasingly contested issue as regional or metropolitan government becomes the key focus for strategic housing policy formulation

Allocation of resources to the regions will become an increasingly contested issue as "regional" or "metropolitan" government becomes the key focus for strategic housing policy formulation. Community governance of social housing, especially in regeneration areas, will become the norm but the main area of housing problems and politics will shift to the market.

Duncan Maclennan is a professor of urban studies and John McLaren is an honorary research fellow of Glasgow University

Politics (extract)
turning visions into ten-year plans

Devolution from Westminster means that regional agencies and providers could acquire a new democratic accountability. What can be better provided regionally than locally? That debate has hardly surfaced in England and it simmers below the surface in the presently devolved administrations. There are at least three arguments for a wider regional governance of housing:

• The economic arguments lie above the local authority level

• "Housing authorities" are often too small to mesh with wider housing and labour markets

• Local planning decisions may neglect wider strategic regional economic impacts.

Regional providers could offer an alternative to ineffectual local authorities. There may be a case that housing, planning and related services should be taken away from councils that consistently score poorly on delivery indicators and given to other public or not-for-profit providers. The future will require housing planning, provision and price outcomes that foster competitiveness as well as social justice. Governance will have to be driven by competence because it is performance rather than old party and boundary loyalties that increasingly influence the way Britons vote. Some of our strategic housing and planning functions may just be too local.

Regional government could have housing functions where local governments are small or weak. Such variety exists already within the UK, with devolved administrations in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland pointing to the possibilities for England beyond regional housing boards and government regional offices. For instance, the Northern Ireland Housing Executive essentially acts as an overall regional housing service. Taking these considerations together the future thrust of housing policies at the regional scale could require the following changes:

• The Housing Corporation should be reshaped and merged with English Housing Partnerships to form a series of regional housing partnerships, or RHPs. In devolved regions, an RHP could report to a regional assembly and be funded from that assembly's block grant. In other regions, it would have a regionally based board involving councillors and community leaders and be funded from Whitehall with a "mission-oriented" budget.

• Regional governments or government regional offices should develop a 10-year "vision statement" in collaboration with local governments and Whitehall departments. Regional investment strategies should be influenced by this vision as well as indicators of social need.

• Developing better links to the planning system. The regional strategic housing plan should follow from the regional vision, have a clear competitiveness audit and have a costed statement of the required infrastructure and related programmes.

• A clear emphasis on connecting housing investment – and related land and infrastructure decisions – to economic development possibilities.

Where strong, effective city and metropolitan government already exists then the regional housing partnerships should focus on other parts of the region.

These proposals should help promote devolution and effectiveness in UK housing, and bring key strategic choices closer to regions of interest. But delivery of housing and neighbourhood regeneration will require more decentralised provision and presence.

cONCLUSION
Where do you want to live?

Although the future is likely to be a synthesis of what we already know, many issues and questions addressed within – and arising from – the Housing Futures 2024 project form a basis for continuing debate:

• The decision about where to live depends on number of complex factors, including the existence of high-quality environments, access to high-quality public services and facilities, consumer choice, community safety, security and engagement. Is current urban development and regeneration achieving these goals? If not, what needs to be done to achieve an urban renaissance?

• Housing is part of a sensitive and interrelated system, the cornerstone of which is the provision of good public services. How is this level of provision to be achieved, maintained and "designed in" to new development?

• If the effectiveness of development and management at a neighbourhood level has a significant impact on the quality of the environment, the community's sense of ownership, and consequently the desirability of housing, what can be done to achieve the best possible outcomes? What role does "civic responsibility" play?

• Housing in the future needs to be more responsive to demographic, technological or environmental change. In this respect, the issue of obsolescence is important. Should rates of demolition and redevelopment increase?

• Innovation in the construction sector is to be encouraged, to enable better quality housing to be delivered quicker. Can lessons be learned from other fast-moving industries that successfully innovate and provide increasing consumer choice?

• Greater understanding of the housing market is required. Greater knowledge of need and demand, economic prospects and demographics is also required. How can the housing system become more responsive and take more initiatives while ensuring social equality?

• Strong coherence between different tiers of strategy is required. Where should strategic responsibility for planning and housing lie – at the regional or local level?

  If a radical review of policy is required, how can we overcome political inertia, and ensure that a long term view is held by both politicians and public?

It is impossible to accurately predict what the future holds. Looking back over the past 20 years to 1984, there have been shifts in the means of housing provision, typology and culture, but essentially, our living environments have not altered drastically. By contrast, the prevailing context for housing in 2004 is characterised by important issues in affordability and supply.