Mixed communities should feature prominently in the government’s spatial and housing policies as a way to reduce social polarisation, MPs argued this week.

The communities and local government committee’s report into the supply of rented housing said more effort must be put into creating communities which avoid concentrating vulnerable households and people on low incomes into ‘ghettos of deprivation’.

The need for mixed communities, where the poorest live side by side with more affluent households, has significant implications for the future delivery of social rented housing. The committee urged the government and local authorities to demonstrate that they are being pursued as a long-term objective.

Government policy must reflect the fact that buy to let and other investment does not always benefit the aims of mixed communities. Social housing providers should be mindful of the negative consequences of polarising working and unemployed tenants within their housing, it said.

Allocation schemes should enable the movement of tenants who make a genuine attempt to get into work, with choice-based lettings schemes prioritising tenants needing to move for employment reasons. But MPs warned the committee would not support any changes that made security of tenure conditional on seeking work.

The use of planning obligations for delivering affordable homes has resulted in too many small flats and not enough family homes, according to the committee. It called on the government to continue to monitor the construction of new social rented housing and to take action if the trend continues.

Ministers were also asked to help larger institutions get into the private rental market in order to improve housing supply.
But private sector advocates of nurturing a ‘build to let’ sector said the recommendation did not go far enough.

Nick Jopling, head of CB Richard Ellis Residential, said: ‘Many of the problems identified in the report can be addressed by build to let. The concept is well tested and popular with investors in the US and sees developers earmark a discrete block of 100 purpose-built flats for the private rental sector. Blocks can either be kept as an investment by the developer or sold whole to another investor.’

Mr Jopling added that purpose-built buildings designed for rental offered the key to providing the best community mix.

Jacqui Daly, director of residential research at Savills, said: ’We don’t need a policy change to encourage build to let and we could see a professional rented sector developed within the current system. What we do need is explicit housing policies supporting rented housing that local authorities can use to assess planning applications.’

The supply of rented housing, www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm/cmcomloc.htm

by Rosie Niven
rosie@newstartmag.co.uk