The CSR proposes that social landlords ‘will be able to offer a growing proportion of new social tenants new intermediate rental contracts’ that ‘better reflect their needs’. Short-term contracts, subject to periodic review, are likely to apply to new social housing tenants and responsibility for these tenancy agreements has been passed down to local authorities and housing associations for them to implement them if they wish. It would be a foolish authority or organisation that took up this invitation, for it is a recipe for accelerated decline and disempowerment in fragile estates.

The coalition proposal for short-term tenancy agreements can be justifiably criticised on its fairness; the impact on the most vulnerable families; children being shunted around from one neighbourhood, school or set of friends to another; the elderly being forced to move out of their established family homes when children move on; and so on. However, its lack of cohesion with the coalition’s proposal for the big society and its ignorance of ‘housing life cycles’ are major weaknesses.

More than 40 years ago, academics working on development issues in Latin America learned that the most successful way to engage people in the improvement of their neighbourhoods was to provide them with security of tenure. Empowerment did not depend on the ownership of a shack, but on the knowledge that they would not be removed from that shack by the authorities. Feeling secure, they invested money, time and energy in their homes and neighbourhoods, turning peripheral shanty towns into dynamic urban suburbs.

More recent evidence from the UK also shows that households with low expectations of staying in a neighbourhood are less likely to commit to the community. The longer a person expects to be in an area, the more likely he or she is to become involved in activities in the neighbourhood and invest in its wellbeing. With stability and the passage of time, the more likely residents are to know their neighbours and to develop relationships that are based on trust – essential elements in the social capital that underpins improvement in deprived estates.

Short-term tenure reduces new tenants’ commitment to their neighbourhood and homes, and undermines their willingness to invest time and energy in the fabric of the housing, the garden and the local environment. There is evidence that this lack of commitment, producing high rates of turnover, increases dereliction and accelerates area decline. This saps the energy of others in the community and encourages them to move rather than improve, resulting in an accelerating decline in the willingness of residents to get involved.

The constant threat of review and eviction will inevitably produce low levels of personal investment and social capital, which will undermine the social cohesion that is needed to underpin community empowerment.

The proposal also ignores the fact that, throughout their lives, individuals and families already have pathways through different housing types and tenures, moving through different styles of accommodation in different neighbourhoods. It is based on the false assumption that once a household is given social rented accommodation, they choose to stay in the same property for life. The 30 per cent of British households who will never be property owners will move through housing types and neighbourhoods as they aspire to accommodation in social housing areas that will provide a stable family life.

Household life cycles, influenced by proximity to family, friends, schools and work, help to shape the demand for the number of bedrooms in flats or houses in neighbourhoods of choice. Young single residents in council areas are likely to move on as their circumstances change. Young families, on the other hand, are likely to want to put down roots in a stable area and move through housing types within a locality. The elderly are happy to move to smaller decent homes in the same area when their children move on, but it is often in short supply.

New entrants to an area are likely to be offered the least desirable accommodation, from which they are likely to want to escape. With stability and age, as they move up the social housing ladder, they are more likely to become involved in neighbourhood activities. Enforcing instability through short-term contracts will do nothing to encourage and support this.