Developing a Decent Neighbourhood Standard
Neighbourhoods are units of place which connect housing and communities spatially, socially and structurally. They have a profound impact on our lived reality and day to day experience. A good neighbourhood is not just aspirational, it is essential to enable communities to thrive. Yet, there is no recognised standard for what makes a “decent neighbourhood”. This absence of a baseline quality standard or framework makes it difficult to assess, improve, and advocate for the places where we live.
Working with our key project partners, Social Life and Witton Lodge Community Association, our ambition is to create a universal but adaptable standard that can be applied to new and existing neighbourhoods and communities, helping to identify local priorities, guide policy and strategic investment, and support community empowerment.
Our Publications
We are delighted to share our latest reports, focussed on the development of the concept.
North Birmingham Decent Neighbourhood Standard: Erdington High Street (June 2026) - Full Report
This report marks an important step forward in the development of a Decent Neighbourhood Standard.
Building on the first WLCA Demonstrator Report, which established the case for a neighbourhood standard and sets out its core dimensions, this report moves the agenda from concept to implementation.
Using Erdington High Street as a practical test case, it shows how the Standard can be translated into evidence, action and indicators. The findings highlight significant strengths, including strong community spirit, an active high street and valued local institutions, but also an area facing serious and persistent pressures – concerns about safety and crime, health and economic inequalities, gaps in social infrastructure and weak accountability.
North Birmingham Decent Neighbourhood Standard: Erdington High Street (June 2026) - Summary Report
The Witton Lodge Community Association DNS Demonstrator is a longitudinal, collaborative research programme.
This is the second project of the demonstrator that starts to operationalise the framework at specific location. The primary output is a benchmarked
neighbourhood quality data dashboard. The project aims are to: conduct a baseline assessment of local quality; develop benchmarked indicators; build a prototype monitoring dashboard to foster community deliberation;
identify data gaps for future research; and deploy dashboard insights to support strategic planning and regional partnerships.
The Witton Lodge Community Association Demonstrator (May 2025)
Witton Lodge Community Association (WLCA) was established by local residents to create a decent neighbourhood following the demolition of substandard housing in Perry Common, Birmingham.
Over the past three decades, WLCA has invested in the community by building and refurbishing high-quality homes and improving the social, economic, and environmental fabric of the area.
The Decent Neighbourhood Standard conceptualised in this research project applies the underlying principles and core themes of the Decent Homes Standard to a neighbourhood scale, expanding its scope from the closed system of individual homes to the broader open system of neighbourhoods.
DNS at a glance - and how you can get involved
Rationale & Universal Dimensions
Neighbourhoods are more than buildings, services and infrastructure. They are the spatial and structural link between housing and communities, ecosystems where daily life happens, and places of opportunity and belonging.
At a time when policy and public attention is turning once again to the hyper-local — from public safety to community voices— the question is not so much whether neighbourhoods matter, but more pertinently how we define what makes them decent, and fit for the purpose of supporting communities to thrive.
Become a Demonstrator Partner
We’re looking for local organisations, from community anchors to placemaking companies, housing associations to local authorities, to help us explore how the DNS can be adapted, applied, and embedded across diverse neighbourhoods including across urban, rural, new development,
regeneration and existing sites.
We are at an early stage of the research and actively seeking funding to take the programme further. We believe that there is policy and practical potential to for the DNS to shape the emerging neighbourhood agenda
nationally and tackle inequalities locally.
This is an opportunity to help build an evidence base around neighbourhood quality and community wellbeing — one that’s grounded in community insights and designed for practical implementation and impact.
We are looking for supporters, collaborators and commissioners to either fund a project or seek funding jointly with us to develop the Decent
Neighbourhood Standard. We are also open for partners to commit to
being a supporter of the programme and join a community of practice.
Our Project Team
