Government urged to push regeneration to encourage stock transfer

This was the principal finding of a report produced by the Chartered Institute of Housing and consultant Hacas Chapman Hendy.

The CIH says this course of action is urgently needed to ensure council homes are up to the decent homes target by 2010. A number of local authorities are in danger of missing the target.

The report will give the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister food for thought as it considers how best to improve the stock options open to councils who need help meeting the decent homes target.

CIH policy director John Perry, who edited the report, said regeneration had a crucial role to play in the stock transfer process.

"Tenants need to be given broader options and regeneration should be one option stressed when considering transfer," he said.

"The decent homes target can be met in a more sustained way if regeneration is included from the outset."

Perry said that even if tenants voted for a stock transfer, there remained much work to be done to ensure that renewed housing stock didn't fall prey to crime and other antisocial behaviour.

It is also hoped that the report will encourage the ODPM to consider partial stock transfer as a more viable stock option.

The report's findings were based on case studies of three post-transfer registered social landlords.

It found that the fragmented nature of funding had proved problematic and that the housing options appraisal used by councils before deciding on a stock option needed to be much more comprehensive.