Hi Rosalie,
Like Nicholas above, I'm not a LA employee (I used to be for nearly 25 years!) but an environmental consultant, so the form was a little cumbersome to complete for me (and I agree has some duplication).
This appears to be a very wide ranging piece of research. Health and Housing itself is a massive area of concern, physical housing conditions are clearly only a part of the health equation, with demographics, socioeconomic status, regional variations, and host of other things that I am sure your project team have covered.
My observation is that you may not be accessing all the relevant data with a narrow focus on permitted development, there are also problems with unauthorised development, and new development where robust building control regulation lacking, and a new home is not fit for habitation as a result . There is also a clear issue with conversion of buildings to HMO's under PD, particularly where the new HMO falls below the HMO licenisng thresholds [link]. I would hope that you will include Council Housing Department and Housing Associations in your review as both will have data on these issues. It may also be helpful to engage with Social Care Departments as they will have specific information on community need.
Clearly buildings are designed and constructed for particular uses. e.g. industrial use of profiled steel sheeting compared to brickwork in resdential applications. The gross changes in land use under permitted development may have implications for lower than expected standards where a new land use is more sensitive. e.g. residential occupation of light industrial buildings. Moreover the basis of health impact from poor house conditions needs to be standardised against robust data sets that provide an unbiased and robust assessment of the health issues related to property.
My assumption is that you plan to review the health impacts in line with HHSRS [link]. In which case you have potentially a huge dataset to work with, as all Local Authorities use this method to identify hazards in homes, and categorise the health impact. Obviously the data is skewed to the worst parts of the housing portfolio that are identified through complaint. The hazards are all scored (allowing comparison of relative risk) by EHO's/Housing professionals, and the outcomes are Cat 1 or Cat 2 hazards that are then subject to enforcement outcomes based on the relative risk. Notwithstanding the above comments for wider consideration, it may be possible to cross reference housing inspection HHSRS data with prior notification PD on council GIS systems if you engage with LA Housing and Planning Departments. It may be that contacting the Chartered Institute of Environmerntal Health and see if they can assist with identification and coordination and access that data (see CIEH Housing Advisory Panel [link]).
The House Surveys [link] conditions is also partly derived mainly from EH sources and may provide useful standardising reporting/comparison.
This seems like a very interesting project, and I am sure you have the above already in hand. I hope you get a good response.
