The politics of policies for ethnic particularism : a study of housing investment decision-making in a small british city

The last two decades have seen significant changes in the role that local authorities play in the development of new social rented housing. Local authorities were traditionally concerned with the development of publicly funded social housing in the form of council housing. Since the late 1980s, however, there has been a central government initiated movement away from the use of local authorities as social housing developers. In its place, a new ‘enabling’ role for local authorities has been instituted. One aspect of this role for local authorities involves strategic capital investment decision-making in the voluntary housing sector. Although the overall size of this sector has remained relatively small, it has come to play a key role in meeting the particular social housing needs of people from minority ethnic groups in Britain. This study, therefore, sets out: i) to examine strategic investment decision-making in the voluntary housing sector as it relates to policies for ethnic particularism; and ii) to explore the influence of a range of national, regional and local factors upon the implementation of decision-making in this arena. A range of methods were used in the implementation of this investigation. These included a series of in-depth interviews with key local political actors, an examination of relevant scholarly texts, national, regional and local policy documents and statements, existing local and national data-sets and social housing needs evaluations. The findings of the study suggest that decision-making at the local level may be influenced by a range of factors. These include the availability of local resources such as time and land for housing development. Particularly influential, however, are the broader regional and national policy and economic contexts in which local decision-making occurs. The specific merit of this study lies in its detailed examination of the interactions between local authority social housing polices and practices, the broader regional and national policy frameworks and economic contexts within which such policies are implemented and the social housing experience of minority ethnic groups in Britain