Why rebranding social housing is a good idea

I expect, like me, you are probably anxious for updates – it's like being a child waiting for Christmas again, isn't it? So here's a snippet from the grapevine. I understand from NHF deputy chief executive James Tickell that we are talking about a "modest visual language" and that the results will be presented in the form of a "toolkit". I'm not sure how much of the £700,000 those conclusions have taken, but it's powerful stuff; there can't be much left in the coffers.

Here we go, you're thinking. Another 600 words of Rouse ripping the mickey out of the NHF. Well – sorry, but you're wrong; I just put in those first three paragraphs so that for the rest of the article I don't look like a complete sycophant (and I promise to supplement them by giving the NHF a good kicking on another occasion when it deserves it).

But this time, it doesn't deserve it. The rebranding initiative is absolutely right. The sector does need a new identity, it does need reconnecting with the neighbourhood renewal agenda and it is failing at present to get its message across.

The NHF is also right that the rallying call should be the "neighbourhood". If you weren't convinced of this before, the Communities Plan should have been your opportunity to catch up. No one for the foreseeable future is going to be thinking about social housing in isolation. Housing will be viewed as a means to an end, and that end is a better quality of life. If housing associations are not contributing to that bigger objective, then, frankly, they should not even be in the game.

The fact that most NHF members are already doing all of the additional stuff but getting no recognition for it is a travesty.

Housing will be viewed as a means to an end, and that end is a better quality of life. If RSLs are not contributing to that, then they should not even be in the game

Indeed, I would probably go further than the NHF. I would jettison the term "social housing" from its lexicon altogether. All the research shows that virtually nobody aspires to live in "social housing". The very term ghettoises and stigmatises the housing that it is attached to. It conjures the last resort and, frankly, I don't think it's rescuable.

In any event, we are at a key moment when it is time to blur the lines between all the tenures. We need a range of accommodation that provides a spectrum of subsidies to meet the complexities of geography, demography and relative poverty. The best developing associations are already mixing and matching with flair and panache.

The movement therefore needs an identity that reflects not only where it is now, but which predicts where it is going. Japanese industrialists have a phrase for this: "expeditionary marketing", or leading the consumer rather than following. For NHF members, that means acting as social businesses providing a range of regeneration and management services, using an expanding variety of funding sources and partnership approaches. Housing Corporation rules shouldn't hold us back.

There is so much to play for. The scale of resources set out in the Communities Plan, the fracturing of the corporation's role, the increased involvement of regeneration bodies in affordable housing funding, all raise one major question – who is going to deliver? Volume housebuilders are running scared. Regional development agencies are still getting to grips with the single funding pot. Urban regeneration companies are few and there are big gaps on the map.