Moving from the Margins

Background

The West Midlands has the largest black and minority ethnic population of any region outside of London and between October 2004 and March this year a project was undertaken to carry out qualitative research into BME housing in the region. Whilst part of a wider project to draw up a new housing strategy for the region, this research aimed to gain a better understanding of the factors affecting racially polarised environments in the area. It was also aimed at identifying actions to ensure BME communities have access to a full range of housing options, as well as opportunities to promote engagement of the BME Housing Network in future strategy development.

The project was undertaken by ECOTEC for the West Midlands Regional Assembly and the BME Housing Network on behalf of the Regional Housing Board. The latter body is charged with producing the region’s housing strategy and making recommendations to Central Government on how national resources should be used for housing investment in the region.
Throughout the project there was a high level of engagement in the process of strategy development and consultation around the Regional Housing Strategy, into which emerging findings from the research were fed.

Methodology

The project was one of a series of concurrent pieces of research commissioned to inform and influence regional housing strategy and investment policies. The brief for the BME housing project was explicitly not to duplicate the other work which included coverage of homeless people, Gypsies and travellers, asylum seekers and refugees, and vulnerable people covered by the ODPM’s Supporting People programme. The findings would be fed into a Shared Evidence Base, core data mapping changing patterns of racial settlement and drawing on the findings of a household survey. The concurrent nature of these commissions proved to be challenging to all the researchers involved. The methodology consisted of several different stages;

Scoping the context to look at the opportunities and challenges affecting BME housing, both in the national, regional and local context. This included the Sustainable Communities Plan and the Regional Housing Strategy as well as the recently strengthened measures to promote both race equality and community cohesion.

Literature review looking at examples of good practice in strategic, policy and practical responses to need in BME communities. This included material variously written from housing, regeneration, race equality and community cohesion perspectives. The purpose of this review was to identify opportunities to replicate good practice within the region.

Stakeholder interviews undertaken in order to enable the research to be informed by the experience, perception and aspirations of stakeholders with an existing or potential interest in BME communities. These interviews covered policy makers, housing providers and independent bodies.

Community interviews undertaken on a selective basis to gain a better understanding of the housing experiences and aspirations of BME communities. These were particularly focused on communities where significant change has occurred or is anticipated and households with changing aspirations.

An housing provider focus group which consisted of all BME Registered Social Landlords (RSLs) in the region together with a number of mainstream RSLs. This looked at culturally sensitive provision, best practice, how this can be developed, the impact of housing market change and the role that BME associations might play in this process.

A policy makers and researchers focus group which discussed key changes taking place in the region, the drivers of change, specific impacts on BME communities, policy changes that are required and the levers of change that need to be utilised.

Shared evidence base material produced by the University of Birmingham and the University of Sheffield became available and was analysed for information on recent and historic residential patterns of BME communities, comparative analysis of the 1991 – 2001 census and patterns of recent housing trends within traditional BME communities.

Community interviews
In order to focus on change a number of BME groups were selected for interview, carried out through a mix of focus groups, individual and telephone interviews. These consisted of BME business people and professionals (including estate agents), BME students at Aston, Birmingham and Coventry Universities, Muslim communities in East Birmingham and the Pakistani community in Stoke-on-Trent. The original proposal to use community interviewers to carry out the research was not pursued due to the time constraints on the project being driven by the reporting deadline for the Regional Housing Strategy.

Findings

Patterns of settlement – Drawing on published data the research showed that BME communities are gradually dispersing across the region, but remain highly concentrated within the metropolitan area and Pakistani and Bangladeshi communities are the most concentrated. The BME population has sustained population growth in a region that, since 1991, would have otherwise declined in terms of population.

Housing options – Informed by the community interviews the research identified the need for a range of housing types, sizes and tenures to create housing pathways throughout the life cycle and in particular the demand for market housing generated by affluent and younger BME households, whilst acknowledging the lower than average income levels in BME communities.

Best practice – The literature review provided a wide range of examples of best practice and policy interventions, which offer models which could be followed in the West Midlands. In particular these pointed to the role of specialist teams and BME housing associations in designing, managing and letting affordable housing in ways that have
increased access.

BME engagement – The stakeholder interviews and focus groups informed findings on ways in which BME communities, and the BME housing sector, could be more effectively engaged in shaping the future development of housing within the region. This shows that there is a need both to address BME housing issues within mainstream programmes, whilst maintaining complementary culturally appropriate provision.

Conclusions - The research report concluded that BME housing in the region had to be seen as part of the solution for the future of the region, rather than being a marginal, special needs issue. In the metropolitan area in particular, BME communities are a major source of growth having a younger age profile than the general population. In the four areas in the region where housing market restructuring programmes are being developed BME communities are significant and need to be engaged and retained if there is to be urban renaissance in the major urban areas.

Taking the agenda forward
The project embodied a high level of consultation, with presentations on its emerging findings made to the BME Housing Network and the Regional Housing Board, attendance at workshops and conferences relating to other work being commissioned by the Board and a presentation to the plenary session of the consultation event held by the Regional Assembly in December 2004. The findings were also presented to the Chief Executive of the Housing Corporation at a seminar hosted by the BME Housing Network.

The task for the region is to reflect the findings of this research, and the complementary projects, within the forthcoming Regional Housing Strategy. This will be published in draft in May and subsequently submitted to central Government. Housing investment decisions to 2008 will also be informed by the strategy. The strategy will assist with the Partial Review of Regional Spatial Strategy which is concerned to reverse the historic pattern of outward movement from major urban areas and make sustainable these communities in which BME communities are most concentrated.

John Bloxsom is a Senior Consultant ECOTEC Research & Consulting Ltd.
Contact: john_bloxsom@ecotec.co.uktop