Housing associations could do more to work with local authorities to give their residents a voice i n local communities and neighbourhoods. Although many housing associations are developing excellent work in neighbourhoods - through local partnerships and finding new ways to promote tenants’ voices - many could do more.

Innovation and Good Practice funding from the Housing Corporation was awarded to the Young Foundation in 2006 to explore the potential for housing association involvement in neighbourhood governance.

'Good Neighbours' found that:

• housing associations succeed in pushing forward neighbourhood governance when they:
  • combine neighbourhood level partnerships and strategic involvement with the LSP
  • invest their own resources in neighbourhood governance
  • value both formal and informal resident involvement
• when associations fail to work closely with local authorities, it is their residents – including many of the most deprived communities in England – who lose out
• political pressures, plus longer term demographic trends – especially growing social polarisation - will push housing associations to focus more on neighbourhoods
• regulation must find a balance between encouraging innovation, and ensuring synergy between housing associations’ neighbourhood working and LSP strategies.

Our research investigated four housing associations that were perceived to be leading examples of associations that were strongly committed to neighbourhood working, both because of their involvement in local governance structures, and their commitment to providing services above those traditionally offered by landlords.

The findings from our case studies were then discussed with and tested against the experiences of another 10 housing associations that represented a cross-section of the housing association sector.

Finally a stakeholder seminar was held in March 2007 to discuss our findings and to help refine the final report's recommendations.

Download a full pdf version of the report.

Hard copies of the summary report are also available from our online shop.