How housing transfers are changing the housing map of England

What started as an unusual initiative by small district councils in the rural fringes of the country has now become a national programme taken up by the major metropolitan authorities. Not just amongst London Boroughs, but also in the heartlands of municipal housing in the north of England – such as Sunderland which completed its transfer in March 2001. Now Middlesbrough is proposing to transfer the whole of its council housing.

The accompanying map illustrates the spread of housing transfers amongst councils across England.

What this shows is that "large scale voluntary transfer" (LSVT in the jargon) is not a single option: the term covers a multitude of possibilities and different permutations. The pattern which has emerged is that whole stock transfers to newly formed housing associations have tended to be the norm in the rural districts (where the number of dwellings owned by the council tend to be relatively small). But in the metropolitan areas partial transfers, often to existing housing associations, are emerging as the norm.

This pattern reflects the dynamics of local politics and the requirement to obtain a simple majority vote in favour of the transfer from the council tenants in each locality.

Some metropolitan areas have succeeded in transferring the whole of their stock to newly formed standalone housing associations – such as Tameside and Sunderland. But the experience of Birmingham and Sandwell indicates that getting large numbers of tenants to vote en masse for transferring to a "new" landlord which has no track record is a very difficult proposition – especially where there is organised opposition.

So the favoured approach in urban areas is emerging as partial transfers - either to community-led associations (which can have strong representation of tenants on their Boards) or to established housing associations which already have a profile and presence in the locality.

If this pattern continues we will see a reversal of the traditional social housing map: instead of monolithic landlord organisations with huge concentrations of properties in urban areas we will get diversity and variety of ownership, while the rural areas will retain single landlord ownership over large tracts of housing.