Affordable Homes and Wellbeing: What’s Possible?

Sponsored by Saint-Gobain Interior Solutions and held at their London Innovation Centre, the roundtable was chaired by David Orr CBE, the Chair of the Clarion Housing Association Board. 

The Quality of Life Foundation helps local communities, professionals and policy makers to plan, design, create and care for homes and neighbourhoods in ways that will benefit people’s health and wellbeing in the long term. 

Joining Andy were representatives from some of the countries biggest housing associations such as Amplius, Anchor, Peabody and Places for People as well as contributors from TCPA and TPAS. 

Several strategic themes were explored in the two-hour discussion: 

• The strategic imperative: why healthy new homes matter

• Designing for wellbeing: beyond compliance

• Balancing pressures: affordability, delivery, and resident needs

• Corporate courage: choosing quality and purpose

• Collaborative action: innovation and influence for systemic change

Some of the recommendations that came from the discussion included: 

• Embed health as a primary development objective

• Collaborate to demonstrate demand

• Advocate for system change

• Invest in skills and innovation

• Prioritise holistic approaches

• Develop robust measurement and evaluation frameworks

A write up of the discussion has been published in a report by the Foundation which you can download here.

Reflecting on the roundtable Andy said: 

“Quite rightly given the Government’s bold ambition how we build new homes is under the spotlight. We can’t afford to be sidetracked by simply chasing a volume number, we need to ensure that health and wellbeing is at the centre of the new homes we provide across all tenure types. If we can get that right, we will have so much more impact. As the report sums the discussion up – the homes we design today will shape the health of communities tomorrow.”