Briefing : Understanding the impact of housing modernisation from the bottom up

Despite a 40 year history of housing modernisation in England and the unrivalled scale of the recent Decent Homes programme, we know little about the experiences of residents as the immediate beneficiaries. This paper helps to address this absent perspective by drawing on data generated through qualitative research in a West Yorkshire city where innovative research methods were employed to reveal rare insights into the residents’ experience of housing modernisation. In doing so, the importance of understanding the impact of built environment interventions, especially those associated with a space as personal as the home, from the perspective of their users is underlined.