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Alliance research has been used by the UK and Scottish governments to direct more of the £10bn p.a. public investment in affordable and social housing towards higher demand growth regions. It has produced a range of affordability-based housing needs models which have been commended as exemplars of good practice guidance for local authorities and adopted by industry consultancies. One tool, used to assess policy options in the context of HM Treasury's 2010 Spending Review, has been described by the Department for Communities and Local Government as "invaluable" and stimulated the development of an equivalent model for New Zealand, influencing investment by the state housing agency, Housing New Zealand, in assets worth $15bn. The research has also led to the cost-effective targeting of low cost and shared home ownership programmes and stronger use of planning powers to deliver affordable housing across the UK and Ireland.
In 1996 Byatt-Smith, Lacey and Parker (all Maxwell Institute, MI) and co-workers developed a mathematical model of housing allocation to examine the impact of housing policies on homelessness in England and Wales. The model was subsequently adapted to the Scottish context by Lacey and Waugh (MI). Since 2008, it has been used by the Scottish Government to help inform its housing policy, enabling it to target development funding for new build to areas of greatest homelessness need and meet its 2012 homelessness commitment. The model has provided quantitative underpinning for major policy changes enacted in Scotland during the period from 2008: the right to buy public-sector housing has been limited, and regions where private rented sector housing has the potential to provide housing for homeless households have been identified. This has resulted in a marked increase of public-sector house builds between 2005/06 (6 starts) and 2009/10 (538 starts). The research informed the allocation of £644M in 2009/10 contributing to a 14% reduction in homelessness in Scotland between 2008/09 and 2012/13.
University of Reading research led to the development of one of the key tools for housing policy analysis used within the Department of Communities and Local Government (DCLG) and related bodies between 2005 and 2013. In particular, the project, which produced 14 publications and reports, has had a major impact on the analysis of policy and subsequent policy decisions concerning housing supply and land-use planning, housing tenure, international migration and the effects of the credit crunch.
The practice-based research outputs contributed significantly to the advancement of knowledge in the area of low-energy affordable housing which was evidenced through design outputs, case studies government publications.
The work has been undertaken in response to governmental concerns regarding the future provision at a national level of an energy efficient, affordable, good quality housing stock. Accordingly, the underpinning approach has been widely disseminated to government departments, public and private housing organisations. The design concepts and principles have been adopted by housing providers, and have become a point of reference for those working within the field of low-energy sustainable housing design.
Working both individually and in collaboration with other researchers, Dr Helen Carr has produced a highly significant and original body of work dealing with questions of housing tenure. This work has provided a direct inspiration for substantial reform of Welsh housing legislation, indelibly colouring current public and political debates in this area, and is recognised by Welsh policy-makers as having had `significant impact' in the reform process, a process in which Carr remains closely and directly involved. With the legislation now in draft form, the research has substantially shaped the agenda of the Welsh Assembly, providing inspiration, intellectual underpinning, a legal framework and the evidential basis for proposals which are now at an advanced stage of development. The research will impact directly on the lives of approximately half a million people who are tenants or landlords, as well as the extensive work in this area of all Welsh councils and housing associations.
The research highlighted here has had a major impact on the design of community led planning (CLP) and neighbourhood planning in England since 2006; initially within the voluntary and community sector and subsequently on policymakers' thinking. This has shaped the trajectory of policy development nationally since 2010 and influenced the way in which local authorities and other intermediary organizations (such as the Rural Community Action Network (RCAN) / Action in Communities in Rural England (ACRE) / Rural Community Councils (RCCs) in England) have approached community-led planning (CLP) and subsequently Neighbourhood Planning (NP). The work has had a significant impact on the NP approach and therefore on the public through the 2011 Localism Act. This legislation led to the `Supporting Communities in Neighbourhood Planning' (SCNP) programme, funded by Communities and Local Government (CLG) since 2011 to a value of circa £20m overall (which includes a 2013-15 tranche of £9.5 Million). The case study lead researcher (Parker) is now co-ordinating a large part of this programme while on 80% secondment at the Royal Town Planning Institute (RTPI)/Planning Aid England (PAE) (2012-2014).
Research by Professor Darren Smith into Housing in Multiple Occupation (HMO) improved knowledge of the effects of students in university towns in the UK and North America. His research led to revised national planning/housing legislation to integrate students into university towns and provide student housing in more strategic ways. Ministers for Communities and Local Government and Housing used his evidence when revising Use Classes. National consultation documents and government-commissioned evidence-gathering reports on HMO emphasise the importance of his research. His work led to Local Authority Student Housing Strategies and University Student Accommodation Strategies, best-practice guides for student-community relations by National Union of Students (NUS)/private sector, and inclusion of student housing in Regional/Local Housing Strategies and Housing Market Impact Assessments.
Planning obligations are used by local government to capture some of the financial windfall that accrues to land owners and developers when planning permissions are granted. University of Sheffield research into the incidence of planning obligations, their financial value, and variations in related local policy and practice has made a significant contribution to national policy development. This includes the shaping of the Community Infrastructure Levy (CIL) and the improvement of obligations policy implementation throughout the UK. The three main impacts of the research have been: (i) to provide evidence that has resulted in a much larger proportion of sites now contributing to infrastructure provision than was initially intended in national policy; (ii) to provide evidence that influenced the decision to restructure affordable housing grants, resulting in better use of around £2.8bn per annum of public expenditure and a greater supply of new housing for lower income households than would otherwise have been possible; and (iii) to inform best practice within local authorities, enabling many of them to use obligations to capture increasingly large contributions to infrastructure provision.
Oxford research on consumption, credit and housing has played a central role in guiding the policy advice provided to UK government departments, planners and regional bodies on housing affordability and housing provision and on policies to support homeowners. The research has provided policymakers worldwide with important insights into the key role of credit and housing markets in the recent global financial crisis and the lessons for central bank modelling and the design of monetary policy.
Research undertaken at LSE since 1995 has changed the terms of debate about land use planning and contributed to substantive changes in government policy. Planning was previously thought of as purely an environmental/design issue, but the underpinning research has demonstrated substantial economic effects on housing supply and affordability, housing market volatility, and on the productivity of economic users of space: it has shown that England's planning policies add up to 35% to housing costs, act as a tax equivalent of up to 800% on the cost of office space and since 1996 have reduced the productivity of a representative English supermarket by 32%. The work had significant influence on the two Barker Reviews and subsequent housing policy changes introduced by the Blair and Brown Labour governments. More recently it has influenced Coalition thinking and policy on planning's wider economic impacts.