Spaces of exception: governing fuel poverty in England’s multiple occupancy housing sector

Abstract

Homes in multiple occupancy (HMOs) – residential properties containing common areas shared by several households – are a growing feature of the housing landscape across the UK. They have often been subject to political stigmatization as a result, in part, of comprising poor quality dwellings. This paper uses a “spaces of exception” framework to explore the juridical and material mechanisms involved in the rise of fuel poverty among people living in HMOs. Having analysed evidence from interviews, census data and the secondary literature pertaining to the English context, we highlight the processes that have led to the biopolitical othering of this housing stock in institutional and infrastructural terms. We argue that the expansion and persistence of fuel poverty in HMOs are promoted not only by the disproportionate concentration of low-income residents in relation to the rest of the private rented sector, but also by the socio-technical configurations that underpin this type of housing. Fuel poverty can thus be seen as the joint outcome of broader practices of legal, political and material delegitimization.

Keywords:

• homes in multiple occupancy
• private rented sector
• housing
• fuel poverty
• energy efficiency
• space of exception

Acknowledgments

Stefan Bouzarovski is an External Professor at the Department of Economic Geography, University of Gdansk, Poland, and a Visiting Professor at the Department of Geography, University of Bergen, Norway. Special thanks are due to Jonny Darling from the University of Manchester for his insightful and thorough comments on an earlier draft of this paper.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes on contributors

Stefan Bouzarovski has more than 15 years of international scientific and policy expertise in the social and political aspects of energy demand, and the transformation of inner-city areas under the influence of household change. His work has been funded by a wide range of governmental bodies, charities and private sector organizations, and has been published in ca. 80 outputs, including the books Energy Poverty in Eastern Europe (Ashgate, 2007) and Retrofitting the City (IB Tauris, 2016). Alongside his current engagements, he has held prestigious appointments at the Universities of Oxford, London, Berlin, Birmingham, Brisbane and Bruges. The findings of his research have been taken up by, inter alia, the European Commission and Parliament, the World Bank, the United Nations, and the International Energy Agency.

Jenni Cauvain joined the Laboratory for Urban Complexity and Sustainability at the University of Nottingham in March 2015. Previously, she worked as a research associate at the Centre for Urban Policy Studies, and the Centre for Urban Resilience and Energy, at the University of Manchester, where her research focused on “smart cities” and neighbourhoods, energy efficiency, housing, and socio-technical change. Outside of academia, Jenni was Research Fellow at the Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR North) between 2010 and 2012, where her work included urban topics such as Northern economic futures, social and economic inequality, housing, as well as energy policy on renewable heat.

ORCiD

Stefan Bouzarovski http://orcid.org/0000-0002-0045-3400

Notes

1 This definition is also stipulated in the 2004 Housing Act, which provides the basis for most enforcement and regulation in relation to HMOs. The Act does not consider the class of people or their social status when it comes to HMO definition. Thus, many “young professional” flat shares are considered HMOs as is bedsit accommodation containing low-income households.

Additional information

Funding

The authors wish to acknowledge the support of the EAGA Charitable Trust towards the research project that formed the basis of this paper. Part of the research leading to the paper was also funded by the European Research Council under the European Union’s Seventh Framework Programme (FP7/2007-2013)/ERC grant agreement number 313478. In addition, the development of conceptual frameworks during the final stage of the research was supported by the Economic and Social Research Council, under grant project reference ES/N014138/1.