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Sustainable social housing regeneration in Ireland: A case study
Journal of Urban Regeneration and Renewal,
17
(3),
325-336
(2024)
Abstract
Declining housing and environmental conditions and socioeconomic marginalisation have been common experiences of older social housing estates. These factors can lead to poor-quality living conditions for residents, estate management challenges for social landlords and poor life chances and reputational stigma for communities. One of the interventions proposed by central governments, local authorities and social housing landlords to address the problems experienced by such estates is estate regeneration. This paper presents a case study of a large social housing estate in the south of Ireland where a long-term estate regeneration masterplan has been implemented since 2013. The paper draws on the findings of multi-annual reviews of the implementation process based on quantitative and qualitative evaluations with multiple stakeholders including residents. The paper also comments on the effectiveness of regeneration strategies to address the impacts of austerity, market failure and structural factors.
Keywords: Ireland; social housing; sustainable estate regeneration; masterplan implementation; evaluation; participation; consultation
The full article is available to subscribers to the journal.
Author's Biography
Cathal O’Connell is a Professor in Social Policy at the School of Applied Social Studies, University College Cork. His research and publications are in the areas of housing policy, social housing management and estate regeneration. Current projects include intergenerational usage of homeless services, and a 20-year longitudinal study of quality of life in seven social housing estates in Ireland.
Mark Cullinane is a recent awardee of an Irish Research Council Government of Ireland Postdoctoral Fellowship (2021–2022) during which he was based in the School of Media, Technological University Dublin. Prior to this he was a Postdoctoral Researcher in the School of Applied Social Studies, University College Cork. His housing-related research interests include rental sector regulation and precarity, homelessness and estate regeneration.
Siobhan O’Sullivan is a Senior Lecturer in Social Policy at the School of Applied Social Studies at University College Cork. She is a research associate of the Institute for Social Science, UCC, and has a particular interest in devising creative research methodologies for applied social research. Ongoing projects include a longitudinal evaluation of a regeneration programme, a participatory project on housing on the West Cork islands, and research on ageing in place in rural Ireland with a national non-governmental organisation (NGO).
