Delivering Affordable Homes - JRF funded research project

The Research Team (left to right: Dave Valller (DoP), Ramin Keivani (DREC), Sue Brownill (DoP), Youngha Cho (DREC), Ilir Nase (DREC) and Nick Whitehouse (SoA))

Against a backdrop of news items warning of the lack of affordable housing and the failure of many developers to comply with affordable housing targets, the Department of Real Estate and Construction has won funding from the Joseph Rowntree Foundation to: 're-examine the role of planning obligations in providing housing for those on the lowest incomes, to consider potential alternatives and to formulate effective local frameworks to address identified shortfalls'. The research project aims to explore the many challenges to achieving affordable housing and provide alternatives where planning obligations are not delivering sufficient housing. It will also look for opportunities in changing policy, such as the production of neighbourhood plans, new financial tools, institutional investment and new ways of providing land for affordable housing.

The project team (pictured above) brings together researchers from the Department of Planning, the Department of Real Estate and Construction and the School of Architecture at Oxford Brookes University. For more information about the project, take a look at the news item on our website.

If you are interested in finding out more information about the issues surrounding affordable housing, take a look at the following links:

The Guardian: social housing
Inside Housing
The Bureau: the housing crisis
Homes & Communities Agency
Social Housing

The research is designed to finish towards the end of 2014 - and I hope to post further updates on the blog.