Housing should provide an environment that is as safe and healthy as possible. Poor housing conditions can be a major cause of accidents and ill health.
Tackling problems of poor housing to protect the health, safety and welfare of the occupants is a key environmental health priority. The Housing Act 2004 has strengthened the position of EHPs in working to ensure that everyone has a decent home to live in.
EHPs working in local authorities focus primarily on helping tenants living in private sector housing, by requiring landlords to carry out necessary repair or improvement works. The English Housing Survey Headline Report for 2009-2010, published in February 2011, shows that some 1.5 million private rented homes failed to meet the Government’s decent homes standard in 2009. Of these, 971,000 homes failed the standard because they had serious Category 1 hazards under the Housing Health and Safety Rating System (HHSRS). Many other homes fail the standard because of problems such as disrepair or outdated fittings, poor sound insulation etc. Others have serious hazards which, even if they are not Category 1 hazards, can pose a risk to health. Particular risks are associated with houses converted into flats – houses in multiple occupation (HMOs). EHPs also help owner-occupiers by giving advice and arranging grants or other financial assistance for repairs or improvements.
In some parts of the country, poor housing is found in clusters. In such circumstances EHPs work at the forefront of urban renewal and regeneration programmes.
As well as those working for local authorities, there are EHPs working in the housing sector as consultants and trainers, and in housing associations.
The CIEH has produced a number of publications on housing, both on its own and with partners.
Government Housing Strategy
In November 2011 the Coalition Government published its strategy for housing - Laying the Foundations: A Housing Strategy for England. The CIEH is disappointed with the strategy, believing that it fails to tackle some of the most pressing housing issues facing the country such as the quality of decent, affordable accommodation in the private-rented sector, increasing homelessness and rising rents.
London’s private rented sector
In December 2011 the report of the London Assembly’s Planning and Housing Committee Inquiry into improving London’s private rented housing was published. The CIEH gave oral evidence to the Inquiry and was pleased to see that the recommendations of report echo the CIEH submission, with its focus on tenant-landlord relations and the need for reform of tenancy conditions. A recommendation that the Mayor introduce a London-wide "Kitemark" accreditation scheme, setting out a minimum standard for conditions in the private rented sector was welcomed by the CIEH.
The problems of housing in London were the focus earlier in the year of a report by the Pro-housing Alliance, of which CIEH is a member. The report - Housing Crisis in London – was published in August 2011 as a supplement to a bigger policy document entitled Recommendations for the Reform of UK Housing Policy. The report highlights how London’s housing crisis shows that public policies over the past 30 years have failed to fully recognize housing as a key determinant of health.