The Role of Housing Stock Transfer Organisations in Neighbourhood Regeneration: Exploring the Relationship between Regeneration, ‘New Localism’ and Social Networks

Abstract

This paper defines stock transfer organisations and argues that they have a pivotal role in accessing funding for the social and economic regeneration of their communities. It places housing and regeneration policy within the changing policy context of ‘new localism’, which, at least rhetorically, emphasises improvement in public services, multi-level governance structures and devolution of decision making. For stock transfer housing organisations this means an increasing need to engage in a wide range of partnerships and policy forums. Bourdieu's notion of habitus, i.e. social, economic and cultural capital, is used to explore the possible reasons for the differential approach of stock transfer organisations to regeneration and the variable success at engaging in a wide range of regeneration activity and attracting additional resources.