Why doesn’t housing policy aim to reduce youth knife crime?

It is also one year since the Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) published one of the clearest studies yet on what these cuts have meant. Their analysis, using hand-collected data and credible causal identification, showed that teenagers who lost access to a nearby youth club performed around 4% worse in their GCSEs – roughly equivalent to doing half a grade worse in one subject.

For teenagers from lower-income backgrounds, the impact was even starker: performance fell by around 12% on a standard deviation, translating to more than a full grade in one subject.

At the same time, the research found that teenagers whose nearest youth club closed became 14% more likely to commit crimes in the six years that followed. Offending rates rose from 14 per 1,000 to 16 per 1,000, with marked increases in acquisitive crime, drug offences and violence. Young people spent less time doing homework and more time on screens.

Crucially, these youth clubs were not simply “holding spaces” where teenagers were kept busy for an hour or two. Crime increased across all hours of the day, showing that the structure and support provided by youth clubs had a much further-reaching impact.

“For every £1 saved by cutting youth clubs, society incurs nearly £3 in costs through reduced earnings, higher crime and pressure on the criminal justice system”

The financial logic is equally blunt. The IFS concluded that for every £1 saved by cutting youth clubs, society incurs nearly £3 in costs through reduced earnings, higher crime and pressure on the criminal justice system. Even for the Treasury, about half of the supposed saving evaporates through lower tax receipts and higher long-term spending.

None of this appears on any news grid. Yet the evidence sits there, unrefuted, as schools discuss bleed kits and parents wonder how we have ended up here.

We hear incessantly about planning reform and the drumbeat of delivering 1.5 million homes. Equally, we all recognise the critical need for more social housing and the impact this can make on enhancing life chances for underprivileged youngsters.

What we do not hear is any serious discussion about linking housing reform to the regeneration of youth provision or community infrastructure.

The Home Builders Federation’s estimate of £6.2bn in unspent Section 106 and CIL levies is not a small policy detail. It is a symbol of a system that has become entirely disconnected from the outcomes it is meant to influence.

Meanwhile, high streets are littered with vacant units thanks to a business rates regime that has hollowed out the places teenagers once relied upon for safe, structured activity.

There was no shortage of competing demands in the run-up to the Budget. White-van drivers, beer drinkers, Cornish pasty eaters, city bankers – all had their lobbyists and their arguments, some of them valid.

But one of the biggest consistent failures of government over the last 20 years has been the inability of different factions to understand each other’s priorities. Youth services, planning policy, regeneration, crime prevention and community investment are treated as separate conversations when they are, in reality, deeply interdependent. These are issues that should be firmly on the minds of all social housing professionals.

“The missing ingredient is coherence: a clear mechanism to unlock unspent funding, repurpose vacant buildings and rebuild the civic infrastructure that keeps young people safe”

It of course makes perfect sense to relax elements of planning policy, and recalibrate affordable housing quotas where appropriate. But none of those steps will carry the legitimacy or community support politicians crave unless people can see a direct link between development and visible improvements in local services.

This is not about bribing communities. It is about ensuring the economic benefits of investment are channelled back into the services that quietly held society together before the early 2000s.

Growing up in the 1980s on a road bordering Barnardo’s headquarters in east London meant these issues were never abstract. Youth services were part of the local fabric. They offered support, activity, structure and a sense of belonging. Until Tesco built on the site, Barnardo’s also owned amazing green spaces where everyone played together. Far too many communities today have been left without any of that.

There are plenty of people across the housing sector who genuinely care about social value. There are charities, youth workers, planners and designers all trying to deliver better outcomes. The missing ingredient is coherence: a clear mechanism to unlock unspent funding, repurpose vacant buildings and rebuild the civic infrastructure that keeps young people safe.

Body scanners and bleed kits will always have their place as emergency tools. But they should be the last line of defence, not the first. The question facing ministers is whether they are prepared to move beyond slogans and make the obvious, evidence-led investments required to stop knife crime long before anyone reaches for a trauma kit.

If we reach the point where installing bleed kits in schools feels routine, it will not be the result of one news cycle but of years of political drift. The solutions are sitting in plain sight. The urgency could not be be more obvious.

Andrew Teacher, founding partner, Lauder Teacher