We all know what a decent home is, because we have a clearly understood standard. But in areas of low demand for housing, investment in bringing stock up to the decent homes standard could be wasted because of a lack of resources for improving the liveability of the local area, or because the neighbourhood cannot be made liveable and redevelopment is the only option.

So, is it time for a decent neighbourhoods standard? Do we even know exactly what we mean by a “decent neighbourhood”?

People aspire towards residential settings that are “decent” and may even tolerate non-decent housing if it is in a decent neighbourhood. On the other hand, dissatisfaction with a neighbourhood is often the main reason people want to move.

So where is the evidence on which to base a standard and to provide a public interest rationale for another target? To answer these questions, let’s look again at the decent homes standard.

The ODPM justifies the standard in part because it will bring health benefits. In particular the new housing health and safety rating system, which will become part of the standard, is based on detailed evidence of the impact of housing on health. Much of this evidence relates to neighbourhood conditions and there is an argument for extending the decent homes standard to decent neighbourhoods on this basis alone.

For instance, visible signs of damage and a lack of surveillance make residents feel unsafe; feeling unsafe is known to affect mental health, and is associated with smoking and a drop in outdoor activity. Lack of green space and trees also has measurable effects on health, with a recent Dutch study finding that 10% more green space in a living environment was associated with a significant fall in reported ill-health.

These types of study use questionnaires, which could be adapted as a neighbourhood site survey checklist and used as part of house condition surveys. A recent study in London used just such a checklist to measure the health-related environment of neighbourhoods. Neighbourhoods were defined as areas with about 200 residents, in which the majority of housing is homogeneous in form and character.

People may tolerate non-decent housing if it's in a decent neighbourhood, while dissatisfaction with a neighbourhood is often the main reason they want to move

Surveyors rated the predominant form and age of housing, the number of dwellings and type of access, provision of gardens, use of public space, amount of derelict land, security and the accessibility of local shops and amenities. Ratings were found to correlate closely with the prevalence of depression and residents’ degree of satisfaction with their neighbourhood.

The best value performance indicator on environmental cleanliness is an example of how the standard could incorporate measures for which councils will already be accountable to their electorates. Other work on neighbourhood sustainability has identified a number of measures closely related to both neighbourhood liveability and future viability. So a range of indicators is already available that could be used for a decent neighbourhoods standard and that chime with what residents say is important.

A decent neighbourhoods standard need not be an inflexible bureaucratic device. It could be a minimum standard that triggers action in consultation with residents and in the context of wider regeneration and development strategies.

Government policy is responding to neighbourhood quality as an issue. But the responses are often not integrated very well, vary in scope and scale, can depend on short-term funding and do not relate to a transparent, national standard. Services on which the quality of local environments depend have had their budgets squeezed by the needs of health and education spending.

The time has come to put this right with a standard for our neighbourhoods that would respond to the most important concerns people have in their daily lives and contribute to the preventive agenda in public health.