Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:

To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, what plans he has to ensure neighbourhoods with a concentration of social housing do not suffer from educational underperformance and high accident and obesity rates; and what plans he has to foster a sense of community in such neighbourhoods.

We are continuing to roll out the Our Place approach – a neighbourhood level, partnership-based approach to service transformation with the community at its heart – across England, with a £1 million grant fund to support up to another 115 areas during 2015/16. This builds on the successes and lessons learned from the 12 pioneer areas and 117 areas previously supported to improve local services. Some of these areas developed new approaches to tackle poor educational attainment and high obesity rates and many of them operate in neighbourhoods with a high index of multiple deprivation.

We are extending this work in 2015/16 through a new First Steps programme which will support 115 areas that are not yet ready for the Our Place approach to produce a Community Action Plan setting out the priorities for their area and how they might go about tackling them.

Additionally my Department’s tenant involvement strategy enables social housing tenants to influence, challenge and take control of their housing services, putting communities in control and delivering localism to some of the most challenging areas.