Changes in social housing announced

Yesterday saw the announcement of changes afoot in the UK''s social housing policies and part of the agenda is the stipulation that all council estates become mixed communities.

The Hills Report on social housing, commissioned by the government, says that new precautions need to be taken to prevent the development of council estate ghettoes.

Robert Shaw from the Town and Country Planning Association explained that mixed communities should be adopted.

He said: "These consist of different types of housing mixed up together rather than building a council estate in the traditional way."

This means a combination of new deal market housing, low-income housing, key worker accommodation and straight private housing.

Mr Shaw added that when social housing is delivered through housing associations then you are more likely to get an entire block of social housing and therefore social housing will not just be shunted into the corner of a housing site and ghettoised.


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