Strong foundations The value of regenerating social housing – and how we can pay for it

According to the English Housing Survey 2020, the East of England has the lowest rates of non-decent social homes at 5%, whilst the South West has the highest with 17% of social homes failing to meet the Decent Homes Standard (see Figure 4). [...] In order to estimate the total investment needed to achieve these targets, we used estimates of the cost per dwelling to upgrade or make decent, and combined these with data on dwelling stock numbers.4849 We then used an input-output model to estimate the impact of investment in the social housing sector on other sectors of the economy, with the regional distribution of the impact differing due to. [...] The decision over which of these two approaches to take has significant implications for some of the most fundamental aims of social housing regeneration: the improvement of residents’ wellbeing, the provision of social housing, the decarbonisation of the social housing stock, and the growth of the economy. [...] 32 STONG FOUNDATIONS The benefits of new social housing construction Social and wellbeing benefits of new construction As with investment in the regeneration of social housing, investment in the construction of new social housing can also have significant benefits, both for current and new tenants and for society at large. [...] The situation that experts described to us was one where the construction of new social and affordable housing was prioritised over investment in the condition of the existing stock – both in terms of organisational focus, and in terms of financial resources.