Why Social Housing Needs Public Accountability Records — And What SA Can Learn
The Guardian · 24 August 2026
TL;DR
Writing in The Guardian, researcher Marco Scalvini argues that social and affordable housing is treated as infrastructure only when it suits developers and local authorities, but is never monitored like infrastructure. In London, a home is classified as "affordable" at the point planning permission is granted and is rarely scrutinised again — through completion, tenure changes, or service charges that can render it unaffordable within months. Using Southwark's Elephant and Castle redevelopment as a case study, Scalvini shows how a promised affordable housing commitment shrank from over a thousand social rented homes to just 82, with residents needing three years of freedom-of-information battles to uncover the truth. He calls for public, dated records of what was promised, what was built, and what it actually costs to live in social housing — comparable to how the NHS publishes waiting lists and inspection results.
Our take
For South African readers, this UK letter lands closer to home than it might appear. South Africa's social and subsidised housing pipeline — from Breaking New Ground (BNG) units to social housing institution (SHI) projects — suffers from a strikingly similar accountability gap. National and provincial housing departments publish budget allocations and unit targets, but granular, scheme-level delivery records are rarely accessible to the public without a PAIA request. Municipalities approve mixed-income developments with affordable unit commitments that are seldom tracked post-occupation. Tenants in social housing projects often face escalating levies and maintenance failures with no formal public register to reference. For landlords and developers operating in the subsidised space, this is a regulatory risk worth watching: as civil society and investigative journalism grow more sophisticated in SA, the pressure for transparent delivery records will increase. For prospective tenants and community organisations, the practical takeaway is to document every commitment made at the planning stage — because, as Elephant and Castle shows, the record that arrives after demolition can only count the losses.
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This is Liivra's summary + take. The full story lives at The Guardian.
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