The Importance Of Healthy Homes


Just a quarter of our respondents would describe 90-100% of their own housing stock as healthy, with an average of over a third of our respondents’ stock being self-described as unhealthy, and a shocking 47% believing that the country’s homes as a whole have become less healthy over recent decades


“Do you believe homes have become more or less healthy in recent decades?” Asked whether they believed such homes can positively affect a tenant’s


life expectancy, 89% said yes. When asked the same question about their happiness, 92% said yes. 89% said healthy homes would positively affect their physical health, 94% their mental health, and 89% that it would reduce the NHS’s spending. Discussing what elements are most important in making a home healthy,


however, was slightly less clear, with a wide range of cited properties. Te most commonly cited elements considered important to a healthy home,


agreed upon by over half of respondents, were insulation at 83%, followed by ventilation (78%), water and air quality at 66% each, then a lack of mould growth (65%), affordable heating (61%), security (59%), natural light (57%), adequate repairs (53%), adequate living space (52%), adequate fire safety implementation (51%), and water tightness (50%). Te elements cited by less than half our respondents included access to green


space (47%), followed by sound insulation (44%), walkable neighborhoods (34%), strong digital connections (27%), and lastly, multigenerational living/ accessibility, at 22%. It is important to note though that the vast majority of these elements were


cited by more than a third of respondents, indicating some agreement on the most important healthy aspects of a home, and that all such aspects are at least relatively important.


BARRIERS TO ADOPTION With such a strong consensus on the benefits of making homes more healthy, and many of the problems behind unhealthy homes being fairly common to most of our respondents, it is clear that there are major barriers preventing


housing professionals from actioning the necessary changes. When asked what respondents believed to be these barriers to be, the most


commonly cited issue by far was costs, at 61%. Tese costs do however appear to mainly be at the outset, with 67% shown in a different question to argue that healthier properties do not cost more to maintain. Te next most commonly cited issue was a lack of Government support at


29%. Following this in descending order were installation issues (25%), access (18%), poor regulation (17%), lack of skills (15%), Covid (15%), lack of tenant demand (14%), and misallocation of funds (12%). With the finger still pointing at the Government, one relatively strong


opinion shown in our poll was when respondents were asked if they think the Government is paying too little attention to retrofitting older properties, with 71% believing this to be true.


CHANGES IN POLICY A lack of information and understanding of the expected changes in relevant policies was also shown to be an issue, with early engagement likely to be far less strong with such little awareness of major upcoming movements. When it came to their understanding of the Decent Homes Standard, for


example, a slightly smaller percentage of respondents believe the Decent Homes Standard should be reviewed (38%) than have heard of the review itself (37%), and a higher percentage believe the Standard needs to be enforced more strictly in the future (52%), something the review could achieve. One of the review’s recommendations to address these issues, property MOTs


– approaching property maintenance in a similar way to vehicles, performing regular checks and assessments – was shown to be even less recognised than the review itself, with 46% having not heard of property MOTs before, and a further 32% having heard about them, but knowing very little about what they entail.


“Why do you believe homes have become more or less healthy in recent decades?” Left to right: Less comments, More comments


34 | HMMFebruary/March 2022 | www.housingmmonline.co.uk


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