Rioting and wellbeing

In a week of rioting it seems strange to be considering wellbeing – something that was demonstrably absent from London, Bristol and Birmingham as EHN went to press. Never-the-less, the concept is now in the policy arena. At the end of last year, David Cameron announced plans to introduce a ‘wellbeing index’ saying that gross domestic product is an incomplete way of measuring a country’s progress.

A key part of the wellbeing agenda is the Department of Health’s new mental health strategy, which aims to achieve parity of esteem between physical and mental health. Wellbeing is also linked with public health planning and is firmly radar for local government, which, for the first time, although it has being doing it for years, is specifically tasked with making people happier.

Meanwhile, the Office of National Statistics is developing indicators to measure wellbeing and social capital. The ONS defines social capital as ‘the pattern and intensity of networks among people and the shared values which arise from those networks’. Drilling further down into the concept it talks of civic participation, such as the propensity to vote or to take action on local or national issues; social networks, such as contact with friends and relatives; involvement in groups and voluntary activities; trusting other people and views about one’s area.

It’s fair to assume that none of these were particularly prominent in those parts of England that rioted. But what of environmental health? Actually, as evidenced by a piece of research commissioned by the Department of Health from the CIEH (see page 10) EHPs have a major bearing on both wellbeing and social capital.

The research, which we will carry a summary of next issue, is based on in-depth interviews with front-line officers and policy makers. It’s not hard to see how dealing with damp or excess cold, reducing neighbourhood noise, tackling fuel poverty and facilitating the removal of trade waste, fly-tipped rubbish and graffiti makes people feel more connected with their neighbourhoods and each other. It’s quite possible that the areas of worst rioting this week, such as Tottenham, Enfield and Peckham, were those with the least visual amenity. Something to ponder on.

 

Tenure of no choice

Twenty-five years ago, in 1986, the first issue of EHN reported on a ‘famine’ in improvement grants. A bold front-page story reported many authorities limiting discretionary improvement grants to disabled or elderly people and long waiting lists. Dr Stephen Battersby, assistant director of the then Institution of Environmental Health Officers, spoke of a ‘savage reduction’ in money available for housing.

At least there were still grants and, until 1988, secure tenancies. But cuts to local authority funding in the late 1980s saw mandatory grants reduced to a trickle, along with council house-building. They were finally killed off in 1996 and not restored by an incoming Labour government.

The Conservatives have returned, in a coalition, and we now have a housing emergency. In many ways it is worse than that of the late 1980s, when a housing market crash and rising interest rates led to a surge in homelessness.

An excellent Dispatches programme, Landlords from Hell (see pages13 and 15) explained how trends uncorrected for three decades have escalated into a fully-blown and wholly predictable crisis. They are – a continuing insufficient supply of new homes, a dearth of affordable social housing and an over-priced and increasingly unattainable owner-occupied sector. The private rented sector – a form tenure for those with no choice – has increased by  40 per cent in the last five years. It now houses more than 3 million people – many wretchedly.

Governments, and local authorities, know that our most aged property houses the most vulnerable; that more than 30,000 people die of excess cold in severe winters, that the only form of private sector rent control is the market and that those who complain to landlords risk, perfectly legally, not having their assured tenancies renewed.

Perhaps the most shocking aspect of Dispatches, was the lack of local authority enforcement activity it revealed – even in a west London borough where hundreds of people are paying to live in garden sheds. A shockingly low level of slum landlords are being bought to book and – coming soon –  insecure council tenancies; ‘social’ rents up to 80 per cent of market levels and even deeper local authority cuts. The housing crisis is going to get worse.