Key Worker Housing, Welfare Reform and the New Spatial Policy in England

Abstract

Under the Labour government the character of spatial policy in England has been subject to significant change. The emphasis has increasingly been on spatial policy as an active social policy. This paper uses the example of public sector key worker housing programmes in England to exemplify and analyse the character of these changes. It argues that the new approach also contains an explicit recognition that social policies can and should be re-oriented towards the wider objectives of accumulation and competitiveness and this has broader implications for the organisation and character of the welfare state.