Development of a Framework for Sustainable Social Housing Provision (SSHP) in England

Abstract

Sustainable social housing provision (SSHP) has become very important over the last few decades for the main objective of meeting housing needs. Despite this, there is evidence to suggest that SSHP has not been practiced successfully. A growing body of the literature shows that lack of an acceptable definition of social housing could contribute to the lack of political will for achieving SSHP.
The overall aim of this research is to develop ‘a framework for implementing SSHP’. The aim was achieved through research objectives, including a critical review of the concept and identification of types of social housing and proposes a definition for describing it; examine the concept of sustainable development (SD) and its requirements for achieving sustainability in social housing provision (SHP); and examine the key constituents, barriers and recommendations for improving SSHP from economic, environmental and social perspectives.
The methodology adopted for this research comprises a combination of the review of the extant literature, a qualitative content analysis and a quantitative questionnaire survey. The contents of the selected documents were grouped into three main categories – constituents, barriers and recommendations for implementing SSHP with economic, environmental and social key factors as sub-groups for each. Data gathered through the questionnaire survey were obtained from housing authorities (public sector) and housing associations (non-profit private sector) as social housing practitioners in England and were analysed using various statistical analysis, including ANOVA.
Findings from the study assisted in ranking the key constituents, barriers and recommendations for the implementation of SSHP from economic, environmental and social perspectives, which are categorised into most critical, critical and less critical for achieving sustainability in SHP. The main factors that dominate SSHP include: affordability, adequate provision, adequate funding, economic design and planning, use of environmental friendly materials, effective land use, use of the renewable energy, reduction of waste, promotion of social cohesion, security of lives and property, etc. The outcome was used to develop a framework for improving the implementation of SSHP, which has been tested and validated. Although SD has become a dominant focus of research activities in recent years, studies undertaken for the development of a framework that tied constituents with barriers and recommendations for implementing SSHP are rare. The framework of this type can help to address various sustainability issues that militate against the achievement of sustainability in SHP. In order to achieve SSHP, the role of stakeholders, including social housing practitioners, governments/agencies, financial institutions and end-users are significant. The study concluded that there is a need to develop a framework for implementing SSHP with a strong recommendation that stakeholders should effectively address sustainability issues in SHP.