Mixed-Tenure Orthodoxy: Practitioner Reflections on Policy Effects

Ade Kearns
University of Glasgow

Martin McKee
UK Medical Research Council

Elena Sautkina
London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine

George Weeks
Transport for London

Lyndal Bond
Centre for Excellence in Intervention and Prevention Science

This article examines mixed tenure as a policy orthodoxy. It first sets out how mixed tenure may be considered to constitute an orthodoxy within planning, being generally accepted as a theory and practice even in the absence of supporting evidence. Five elements of this orthodoxy are identified, relating to (1) housing and the environment, (2) social change, (3) economic impacts, (4) sustainable communities, (5) and sociospatial integration. Interviews with practitioners involved with three social housing estates that have experienced mixed-tenure policy interventions are reported to consider why the implementation and effects of mixed tenure might not correspond with the orthodox understanding. It is argued that policy ambiguity and weaknesses in policy theory and specification, alongside practical constraints, lie behind incomplete and counterproductive policy implementation, but a belief in pursuing the policy orthodoxy persists nevertheless.