From Decent Homes to Decent Neighbourhoods: Addressing Place-Based Inequalities
Dr Halima Sacranie, Honorary Research Fellow at CHASM, leads the Housing and Communities research programme at the Centre for the New Midlands.
Over the past year Halima has focused on understanding how housing and neighbourhood quality shape and impact upon wellbeing and social inequalities. The Centre’s recent work includes an evaluation of the West Midlands Social Housing Quality Fund (SHQF), and the development of a Decent Neighbourhood Standard in collaboration with Social Life and Witton Lodge Community Association in North Birmingham.
Commissioned by the West Midlands Combined Authority, the SHQF evaluation assessed the impact of a £15 million government grant programme addressing severe damp and mould in social housing across five local authority case studies. Using a mixed-methods approach - including a technical property analysis, tenant survey, and qualitative interviews- the research highlighted the devastating health and wellbeing consequences of poor-quality housing. Over 40% of tenants surveyed had lived with damp and mould for over four years. While the SHQF programme achieved noticeable improvements, housing providers described the funding as “a drop in the ocean” given the vast scale of need and persistent underinvestment—compounded by the challenges facing tenants such as financial hardship and fuel poverty, which were seen to worsen the prevalence of damp and mould in homes.
The Decent Neighbourhood Standard research project explores neighbourhoods as socially constructed environments influencing community wellbeing. At a time of renewed political and policy attention to local conditions and their impacts, it seems a critical moment to define what makes a neighbourhood “decent.” Partnering with Social Life and Witton Lodge Community Association, the Centre developed an emerging Decent Neighbourhood Standard - an actionable framework addressing two core questions: what is the minimum level of infrastructure and services needed for a decent quality of life, and who is responsible for the quality of neighbourhoods?
The Standard aims to improve neighbourhood quality through a robust yet locally adaptable framework. It draws on the legacy of the Decent Homes Standard, but broadens the scope to include social, environmental, and physical determinants of place.