The UK Housing Review Reader: A Q&A with lead editor Mark Stephens

We spoke with Glasgow University’s Professor Mark Stephens, the lead editor of the UK Housing Review Reader, to find out more about how the free resource can help housing professionals gain a better understanding of the wider policy landscape.

Earlier this month, we launched the UK Housing Review Reader, a free resource containing a selection of expert policy focused articles from the last seven years of the UK Housing Review.

The publication aims to serve as a resource for students of housing and those interested in expanding their knowledge of the changing housing policy landscape and the wider housing system.

As our chief executive Gavin Smart said during the reader’s launch: “The UK Housing Review has been a key resource for housing professionals and policy makers across both public and private housing sectors for over 30 years.

“CIH are delighted to launch the Reader, an essential encyclopedia of knowledge and analysis for the next generation of housing professionals and students.”

Mark Stephens, a long-time contributor to the review, was tasked with deciding what articles from the last few editions of the UK Housing Review to include in the new reader.

Here, Mark shares insight into the process of compiling the reader and what he hopes both students and veterans of housing will get out of it.

How valuable is a resource like this to housing professionals? 

Well, that’s up to them to say! But I hope it enables housing professionals who are often engaged in day-to-day parts of the housing system to think a bit more strategically about the bigger picture. 

What did the process of compiling the reader involve? 

Readers will see that the reader has been structured. The first chapter outlines how we can think of the housing system can be thought of as operating in three spheres: the sphere of production (or supply), consumption (including tenures), and exchange (which includes finance). It also shows how these interact with the wider economy, the labour market, and social security systems.

The subsequent chapters were selected to reflect these ‘spheres’ or different aspects of the housing system. 

The concluding chapter again reflects this framework and looks ahead to how we might reform the housing system in the future. 

How did you decide what to include in the reader? 

Chapters were selected to ensure that a broad range of topics were covered and reflected the structure of the book. Some excellent chapters from the review were not selected because they had become outdated — for example, on the now abandoned zonal planning reforms. 

The reader includes analysis from the last seven years of the UK Housing Review. How did you decide on how far back to go through previous issues? 

Although many issues faced in housing are enduring, the policy and wider context is apt to become outdated. Going back six-seven years reflected the balance between identifying chapters that covered the topics we needed to, whilst remaining sufficiently current. 

When you looked back through the last few years of the UK Housing Review, did anything jump out at you as being particularly prescient? 

I had two rather depressing observations. 

One is that housing policy has been subject to the political instability we have seen at Westminster over the past seven years or so. We’ve had five prime ministers since 2016 and countless housing ministers.  

The other is that the Economic Prospects chapters (which don’t appear in the reader) reveal persistent economic underperformance. Stagnant real incomes and strained tax revenues both feed into worsening the housing situation. 

What do you see as the key takeaways of the reader? 

There are two key takeaways. 

One is that housing policy really does matter, and we need to hammer this home with politicians. The other is that the two-way links between housing, the wider economy and social issues need to be better understood.

Download the UK Housing Review Reader