The Importance Of Healthy Homes
“How many rental properties do you have in management?”
Whatever the movements or barriers are, however, the message is clear: the UK’s ageing housing stock needs to be addressed at pace, and housing professionals know it. Change must happen now, and inaction puts lives at risk
Tis trend continued to an even higher degree with the TCPA’s Healthy
Homes Campaign, with 42% having not heard of it, and a further 48% having heard of it but having little understanding of it. Tis is unfortunate, because the same share (48%) were shown in a different question to believe that healthy properties should be added to the Building Safety Bill, which is one of the tenets of the TCPA’s campaign.
CONCLUSION Tere is no getting around it; unhealthy homes risk lives, and the UK’s housing stock has been found to be lacking. Poor design, specification and repair can lead to homes that strangle their
inhabitants, some by encouraging fuel poverty, others by poisoning the air they breathe, or by denying them simple human necessities such as clean water or daylight. Our survey demonstrated a wide acceptance of the dangers of unhealthy
homes, and the benefits of their healthy counterparts. Tough their perception of the most important aspects of such a home varied somewhat, the vast majority of our respondents believe that healthy homes lead to longer, happier lives for their inhabitants. Despite this, 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. Te research identified a number of barriers to making a property healthy,
with costs coming up front and centre. Failings of the Government were also highlighted here, with respondents complaining of a lack of focus on retrofitting properties, as well as insufficient financial support for landlords and housing associations in doing so, and poor regulations. When it came to our respondents’ understanding of such regulations, and the
industry’s current movements to improve the country’s housing stock, this too proved to be a barrier, with many not aware that the Decent Homes Standard is being reviewed – something that could bring sweeping changes to the regulations behind a home’s health. Whatever the movements or barriers are, however, the message is
clear: the UK’s ageing housing stock needs to be addressed at pace, and housing professionals know it. Change must happen now, and inaction puts lives at risk.
“Do you believe the Government is paying too little attention to retrofitting older properties?”
36 | HMMFebruary/March 2022 |
www.housingmmonline.co.uk
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