More than two-thirds of council homes fail to meet minimum standards in areas such as as affordability, location and living conditions, according to a housing charity.
The Living Home Standard has been developed by Shelter and British Gas, setting out 39 attributes that people need ‘in order to live rather than just get by’ in.
The Standard includes five criteria: affordability, decent conditions, space, stability and neighbourhood.
A report into the current state of British housing found 68% of local authority-owned homes do not meet the Standard.
In the report’s foreword, Campbell Robb, chief executive of Shelter, said: ‘With the Living Wage as our inspiration, we wanted something that would raise the bar for homes in this country. Developed by the public for the public, this ground-breaking piece of work amplifies Shelter’s vision of a home for everyone, bringing together for the first time space, affordability, neighbourhood, decent conditions and stability.
‘We’ve been able to take a holistic look at home, and provide an ambitious but realistic definition of what the British public believe everyone needs from a home in order to live rather than just get by.’
