Give decent homes standard a break
I read with interest Maria Wardrobe’s letter (Inside Housing, 5 February). I understand where she is coming from. But the decent homes standard was conceived more than 10 years ago, which I admit does seem like a lifetime sometimes. Back then energy efficiency issues were nowhere near as well recognised nor understood as they are now, particularly in terms of the existing housing stock.
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The standard was designed as a framework for investment in social housing, and to give tenants a minimum (I stress a minimum) expectation for their home. Having worked in social landlord asset management for the duration of the DHS programme, I would say that it brought a number of benefits. These included - but are not limited to - a method for improving consistency, fairness and equity in investment decisions, and more transparency for tenants.
Of course, no one can say the DHS is perfect, it most certainly is not. Many games were played while attempting to reach annual DHS targets and things sometimes went wrong. But the head of the Communities and Local Government department responsible for the DHS received an OBE in the New Year’s Honours list for more than 10 years of concerted effort to promote and implement the standard, an honour, in my view, thoroughly deserved.
But I certainly agree with Ms Wardrobe that the energy efficiency of the existing stock needs to be vastly improved, and a standard does need to be developed to enable this. However, rather than blaming the DHS for its shortcomings, let’s all move on, recognise and give credit for the many benefits it brought to social landlords and tenants and, as a sector, take responsibility for undertaking the enormous and complex task of retrofitting the stock to improve conditions for existing tenants and even more so for the global future generations who will suffer if we continue to talk, but take no action.
Dr Jim Kempton, University of Portsmouth