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Decent Housing

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  • Raising standards
  • Better design

Raising standards

In 1997 there were 2.1 million houses owned by local authorities and housing associations that did not meet the decent homes standard. Since then, there has been a major effort by this Government to bring housing in the public sector – local authority and housing association housing – up to a standard of decency. The target is that 95% of all public sector homes should be decent by 2010. By that time, it is estimated that work will have been done on some 3.6 million homes.

A decent home is one that is in a good state of repair, has modern facilities such as a bathroom and kitchen and is warm.

For government definition and guidance see:

housing for the Future
A Decent Home: Definition and guidance for implementation,2006 – Update, DCLG, 2006
download pdf ( 2.1 MB)

For more details see:

housing for the Future

Housing in England 2006/07: A report based on the 2006/07 Survey of English Housing, carried out by the National Centre for Social Research, September 2008
download pdf ( 2.1 MB)


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Better design

In 2007 the Government’s advisory body, the Commission for Architecture and the Built Environment (CABE) carried out an audit of new housing

PPS 3
Housing audit
download pdf (2.2 MB)

Assessing the design quality of new housing in the East Midlands, West Midlands and the South West

which found that: ‘Across England ... only 18 per cent – fewer than one in five – of developments we audited could be classed as ‘good’ or ‘very good’.  Perhaps more importantly, the quality of a substantial minority of developments – 29 per cent – is so low that they simply should not have been given planning consent.’

CABE and other bodies are working to raise the standard of the design of housing. An important way of doing this is though the use of the Building for Life standard which enables developers and local authorities to assess new housing against a series of clear standards.

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