Assessing sustainability in housing LED urbanregeneration : insights from a housing association in Northern England

How far do current assessment methods allow the thorough evaluation of sustainable urban regeneration? Would it be useful, to approach the evaluationof the environmental and social impacts of housing regeneration schemes,by making both hidden pitfalls and potentials explicit, and budgeting costsand benefits in the stakeholders’ perspective? The paper aims at answeringthese questions, by focusing on a case study located in the Manchester area,the City West Housing Trust, a nonprofit housing association. Drawing fromextensive fieldwork and including several interviews with key experts fromthis housing association, the paper first attempts to monetize the environmental and social value of two extant projects – a high-rise housing estateand an environmentally-led program. It then discusses whether and how astakeholder-oriented approach would allow more engagement of both currentand potential funders in the projects at hand. Findings from both the literature and the empirical data that was gathered show how in current housing regeneration processes, room for significant improvements in terms of assessment methods still exist. Findings additionally show that the environmentaland social spillovers are largely disregarded because of a gap in the evaluationtools. This may also hinder the potential contributions of further funders inthe achievements of higher impacts in terms of sustainability