The Challenges affecting Social Housing

How can we all work together to secure the future of the UK’s social housing and deliver the next generation of homes? To better manage and maximise existing assets and, as a recent report backed by 100 council landlords puts it, to “wake the sleeping giant of housebuilding”?

Emapsite has worked with the social housing sector for many years, delivering geospatial data that helps manage asset portfolios, improve efficiencies, drive cost savings, and provide more effective planning and design. Now part of Idox Plc., we offer increased scale and access to a wider portfolio of relevant products, including both data and software.

For example, groundMapper, which solves the historical issue of training staff on specialist mapping/GIS software or using outsourced managed services instead. The former is impractical, the latter is expensive. groundMapper is simple and intuitive – with easy data segmentation allowing multiple users, so you can really make the most of the data available.

Here are eight challenges affecting social housing today, and some ways Idox Geospatial might help visualise and solve them. 

1. Development planning 

According to the latest Regulator of Social Housing statistics, the number of homes for social rent in England fell by over 6000 in 2023. “Local authorities saw a fall of around 9000 homes for social rent, while private registered providers built, purchased or acquired around 3000, which partially offset the decline.” 

Idox Geospatial helps housing associations have meaningful conversations with those providers much more quickly. We have all the latest data on land purchased for private development – from who owns what and where, to what’s there now, to what they plan to do.   

Of course, every housing association is different. On average, we find most get 40% of new stock from private providers and 60% from their own development.  

We help here also. In finding land for housing development, identifying constraints to that development, or assessing the cost of land remediation – and offering potential savings in the hundreds of thousands of pounds. 

2. Grounds maintenance  

Housing associations are responsible for more than houses. They have many miles of green spaces under their control.  

Our data allows them to visualise every inch, so they can more effectively manage contracts and responsibilities for grounds maintenance.  

We can also provide data on all trees over three metres – are they closing in on someone else’s boundary, are they dropping leaves in gutters and causing damp and mould problems? Something that’s very high on the social housing agenda right now. 

3. Property management  

All social housing providers must be able to report on the condition of their stock. Fully featured, this information is not only a legal requirement, but also of sizeable financial benefit: now you know how to prioritise and where to concentrate your maintenance efforts.  

Idox Geospatial data products assess energy performance of housing stock, building condition and future investment plans for refurbishment. Review occupancy status and identify properties susceptible to damp and mould. Manage disposals and acquisitions, property maintenance contracts and efficient allocation of works orders.