Mixed tenure "is not the solution to deprivation"

A study by Demos to be published later this summer will seriously question the notion that mixed tenure estates are the answer to deprived neighbourhoods.

Speaking at a Room seminar last week, senior Demos researcher Ben Jupp previewed the think-tank's study of a large sample of mixed tenure estates.

It found that contact between owners and renters on those estates was below the national average. Precise figures cannot be given until the research is completed, but nearly two-thirds of owners did not know the name of their tenant neighbours.

More than three quarters of people on the estates did not ask neighbours for help. And a tiny proportion of tenants contacted owner occupiers for jobs.

The study found that on the whole owner-occupiers did not mind moving onto mixed tenure estates. But in those areas the overall satisfaction with crime, graffiti, noise and friendliness, was below the national average for social housing.

The research is likely to be taken seriously by government because of its close links with Demos. Former Demos director and the current chair of its advisory panel Geoff Mulgan works for the Number 10 Policy Unit and is a member of four of the Social Exclusion Unit's policy action teams.

The growing enthusiasm for mixed tenure has been fuelled in part by Demos itself. Less than two years ago it called for "mixed tenure policies not as a management tool but as a community-building strategy" (Housing Today, issue 49).

Jupp admitted that his own view had changed as a result of the research. "It was a salutary lesson," he said. The study will stress that work contacts and the interactions through schools are more important than geographical ties.

Jupp said: "An estate in itself is not much of a social unit."

His research will also expose the ineffectiveness of community centres for fostering communities. Fewer than 10 per cent of people used community centres and pubs on their estates.