How much does your housing association contribute to the local and national economy?

You can find out the answer to this question using the newly updated version of the Local Economic Impact Calculator. Developed exclusively for National Housing Federation members by the Centre for Economic and Business Research, it is a handy tool which allows you to create estimates of the impact your organisation’s activity has on the local, regional and national economy. This activity can be in the form of building new affordable homes, or of managing existing homes.

We make extensive use of the tool to support our lobbying and influencing work, and we hope you will do so as well. For example, we are able to say that managing the nearly 2.6m low cost rented homes owned by housing associations in England (from data published by the Regulator for Social Housing) adds an estimated £8.6bn to the English economy each year. We also know that building the 39,432 new affordable homes (supply survey data) for 2019/20 added an estimated £2.2bn to the national economy.

It can also be used to estimate of the impact of proposed new developments. For example, if you are proposing a new development of 50 affordable homes in Herefordshire, using the tool shows that this could add £2.4m to the local economy and support 45 full-time jobs. This type of information can be very useful in communicating with local stakeholders and decision makers.

The newest version has updated the data which sits behind the calculations, and incorporates changes to local authority names and boundaries. It is free to NHF members and also includes a video explaining how to use it, and some supporting documentation. Please do drop me a line if you have any questions or feedback about it – I’m always keen to see examples of it being used.