Housing and urban planning policy
Research Topic
Language: English
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Research problems linked to this topic
- What is the best way to model trade-offs and synergies across multiple environmental, social, and economic goals resulting from land use and land management?
- What factors can lead to poor building industry compliance within the regulatory regime? And what is effective in motivating industry to comply (including in relation to energy efficiency)?
- What might be the impacts of the drive to reduce housing stock emissions on housing supply and affordability? What is the evidence, including unintended consequences?
- Who is most/least effectively helped by the Homeless Reduction Act? What does that mean for how interventions are best targeted?
- How should leasehold and commonhold reforms be designed to improve transparency and fairness for leaseholders (and freeholders on private and mixed use estates), protecting leaseholders from abuse and poor service, and driving increased take up of commonhold?
- What financial pressures does new housing put on local authorities? How does this vary between types and tenure of home, and to what extent are these costs recovered through developer contributions, council tax and other forms of local authority revenue?
- What evidence is there more generally of the efficacy of different planning interventions? Which interventions does the evidence show best support prosperity, health and wellbeing?
- What is the evidence of the efficacy of different planning systems across the UK and internationally? Are there particular countries that exemplify the role land use planning can play in serving and supporting communities? How have outcomes been selected, measured and assessed?
- How does demand and need for housing compare between London and the rest of England?
- What are the benefits of a more diversified housing supply market (in the sense of having a varied mix of small, medium and large-sized developers)? Can they be monetised for use in business case appraisals?
- What are the most significant benefits arising from developing brownfield sites and can these be monetised for use in business case appraisals?
- What methods could be used best to assess the impact of planning reforms on housing supply? How might they indicate long term impact on the affordability and quality of both construction and the surrounding environment, as well as achieving net zero housing?
- What can we learn from regimes where planning and regeneration powers have been devolved from central government towards regions and local stakeholders?
- What are the wider impacts of improving the quality of rented homes (e.g. the impact on well-being, health outcomes, landlords, renters, and the housing market)?
- What are the most effective methods for increasing landlord accountability to residents?
- What is the latest evidence on the affordability of social housing – including across different areas of England, different groups, and/or for different types of social housing? What are the impacts of this?
- How can we ensure the right housing is built in the right places, and at the right time?
- What are the most effective interventions governments can implement to increase housing supply where most needed?
- What are the key drivers of housing affordability? And what is the role of housing supply within these?
- To what extent is housing tenure (e.g. social rented, private rented, home ownership etc) driven by choice? What drives people’s choices? For example, is private renting seen as a ‘stepping-stone’ to home ownership? And how does this vary across different geographical areas?
- What is the role of commercial property development in supporting growth in places? And what does the evidence suggest about how this may change going forward?
- How does well-being matter in the context of levelling up? What are the most effective levers for government (central and local) to affect well-being? How does well-being interact with other place based interventions such as housing and regeneration?
- What does the evidence show are the factors that create the greatest potential to build agglomeration economies that benefit local areas and residents in question? And what are the key elements that bring agglomeration benefits– housing, transport, local skills, R&D and business dynamics? Are there costs to agglomeration that that worsen outcomes for residents and neighbouring areas?
- Following COVID, the shift to online retail and increasing densification of cities, what does the evidence show that sustainable urban living looks like, to cater to society’s economic, environmental and social needs?
- What are the broader environmental consequences of changes to the housing and planning system, and what is needed to support a lower-carbon future?
- What is the most effective means to support community regeneration through use of parks and public spaces?
- How have other countries outside of the UK approached planning reform, and what have the impacts been?
- What is the future need/demand for supported housing and how do its costs/cost-effectiveness compare with alternative types of support?
- What does the evidence show in terms of the impact of regulation on private renters? (e.g. if landlords are required to invest heavily in their properties to improve standards, will rents rise?). How does that vary across the income groups of private renters?
- What are the most cost-effective ways of making new homes more energy-efficient?
- What are the best examples of how to incentivise local residents to support new housing and infrastructure in their local areas?
- How best is land value captured to pay for social housing and infrastructure? What are the limits to the capture of land value, and why?
- What are the qualitative and quantitative evidence for the way that an increase in housing supply or an improvement in housing affordability has an impact on economic growth and productivity?
- What can we learn from recent experiences of planning reform both across the UK and internationally?
- How do we ensure the economic benefits of city centres or industrial clusters generate spill overs for surrounding towns, villages and sectors? What is the key to prosperous local towns and villages?
- What are the best ways in which the use of AI could speed up the planning system, reduce costs for local government and improve the delivery of public services?
- Are there any examples of AI tools being used effectively for data gathering from local authorities creating a less burdensome approach to gathering data, analysis or reporting?
- How does susceptibility to mis- and disinformation, and its impact (if any) on voting behaviour, vary by age? What impact could extending the franchise to 16 and 17 year olds have on this?
- How have instances and levels of harassment and intimidation in elections changed over time? Who in the electoral process experiences harassment and intimidation, by (1) their role in the electoral process e.g. voter / candidate / staff, (2) their demographics? What are the barriers (if any) to individuals reporting instances of harassment and intimidation to police, and to the police investigating these reports?
- Are there any local examples of effective strategies to help individuals settle, which generate better outcomes for people?
- What are the long-term impacts/implications of community-based sponsorship?
- How different (if at all) are the pressures facing local authorities when welcoming resettlement cohorts? What is the reason for any differences?
- What can we learn from variations in the performance of different public service providers within each public service (taking account of area cost differences and differences in the characteristics of the population served)? To what extent does devolution, the adoption of best practice, or other interventions reduce such variation and improve overall public service performance?
- How can different public services, delivered by different scales of devolution and methodologies, be compared to learn best practices and improve efficiency?
- What opportunities does devolution offer for strengthening local resilience and improving community cohesion?
- What devolved or new powers would support increased productivity in regions which are falling behind?
- How can technology be utilised to enhance and strengthen systems for gathering, analysing and using data and information to assess community resilience and cohesion?
- What is the best evidence for the social and economic impacts of living in a more integrated and cohesive place?
- Why do otherwise similar areas experience different health, education and other outcomes?
- How can the evidence base illustrate the extent to which outsourcing and the position on pay and conditions in social care has resulted in a) a greater reliance on foreign workers, b) poorer quality of care and c) inefficiency in public service delivery?
- To what extent have weaknesses and limitations in the UK’s employment rights protections – such as exploitative zero hours contracts – contributed to poor productivity, regional inequality, or child poverty?
- What are the long-term impacts from prolonged insecure work on the life chances of individuals, including on family formation and stability, opportunities to get on the housing ladder and healthcare needs?
- What are the impacts from jobs with higher pay, better working conditions and security on affordability and supply in the private rented sector?
- What is the regional picture on jobs with higher pay, better working conditions and security?
- How can we further quantify the impacts of planned changes to employment law on raising living standards across the UK, as measured by real household disposable income?
- What are the broader social benefits to individuals from jobs with higher pay, better working conditions and security, and can we link these benefits to wider society e.g. through savings to the Exchequer via reduced healthcare needs?
- What are the best examples of local initiatives to reduce child poverty – what levers were used and how can central government provide support?
- What are the lessons to learn from successful insourcing of services by local government? What are the common themes behind failures of outsourcing relevant to local government?
- What examples are there of local public service reform initiatives that we can learn from?
- What is the evidence that prevention and early intervention in adult social care, children’s social care and other local services improve outcomes – compared with treating problems – and lead to better value for money for taxpayers?
- What are the challenges associated with delivering infrastructure to support housing development and how best can they be overcome?
- What further evidence is available on locally driven initiatives to combat homelessness that has positive outcomes for service users?
- What are the most cost-effective measures for moving households out of temporary accommodation – and keeping them out?
- What are the monetised economic, social and fiscal costs of homelessness and rough sleeping for different groups in the short, medium and long term?
- What role can housing policies play in helping to alleviate child poverty and longer-term life outcomes?
- What are the strongest policy levers for improving living conditions for tenants and is there evidence from any locally driven initiatives we can learn from?
- What are the long-term impacts of housing quality on social cohesion, health, educational attainment, child poverty, life chances, wellbeing and other outcomes? What are our best quantified and monetised estimates of these relationships?
- What are the capability and capacity gaps (both in delivering high quality new housing and remedying issues in existing stock) facing the construction workforce in the UK and what impact do those gaps have on housing quality and safety?
- What are the gaps between the design performance, and the actual energy usage or other measured performance of buildings?
- What is the most constructive way to address the issue of empty homes – particularly long-term vacants?
- What are the key policy levers needed to ensure the most deprived communities can share in the benefits and opportunities from growth?
- How can digital infrastructure be integrated with physical infrastructure to improve service delivery, enhance connectivity, and optimise resource use?
- What are the best methods for robustly estimating productivity differentials across different parts of the UK and what are the main reasons for these differences?
- How can transport investment release additional land for housing and deliver wider economic benefits?
- How should the change in value of an amenity best be assessed where a change of use of a property takes effect (for example, where it becomes housing)?
- Which planning regime measures have been shown to be most effective in meeting local housing need in different scenarios?
- What role can the planning system play in supporting levelling up? What are its limits?
- What explains the sub-regional variation in poor quality housing? How does this vary across the UK?
- How can housing quality interventions maximise the benefits of living in a good quality home?
- What is the trade-off between security of tenure and investment in/supply of private rented housing? How best can the two be optimised?
- What factors will shape the demand for home ownership in future? What will the future trend in homeownership look like under different scenarios?
- What does the evidence show about the future housing needs of older people, and how government interventions affect these needs?
- Is the housebuilding market more concentrated/less intensely competitive than other markets? How has this changed over time, and how does the UK compare in this respect with other countries? What are the implications of this?
- What emerging evidence is there about the future housing market in a post-pandemic world? And how will net zero carbon emission homes affect this?
- How is the strategic regeneration of large areas best managed over the long term?
- How can we use novel datasets to understand capital investment needs across the UK, including by sector and region?
- How can our estates (including school nurseries, schools and publicly provided children’s homes) provide a suitable, healthy, and resilient environment for learning and to deliver our Opportunity Mission and how can this be done in the most cost-efficient way?
- What is the environmental impact of our estates, what works in reducing their impact (when, where and why) and which adaptations are needed for our future climate?