Curia’s latest Healthy Homes, Healthy Communities – Housing Sprint One Report does something deceptively simple: it reframes housing as infrastructure.
Not as a social add-on. Not as a discrete planning challenge. But as core national infrastructure in the same way we treat energy, transport, or water.
The Spring was chaired by Crawley MP, Officer of the All Party Parliament Group (APPG) for the Southeast and Gatwick Diamond Growth Gateway, and Chair of the APPG for Wellbeing Economics, Peter Lamb. The South East sprint brought together local authorities, infrastructure providers, health leaders, and industry to co-produce solutions to overcome the combined reality that the pressures facing the NHS, adult social care and local government budgets are inseparable from the conditions people live in.
Cold homes, overcrowding, displacement across borough boundaries, digital exclusion – these are not background issues. They are upstream drivers of demand.
The core recommendation from the report is that treating housing, health, and digital infrastructure as separate policy silos has produced fragmented delivery and rising cost. The consequence is a system permanently reacting to crisis rather than preventing it.
Digital Poverty Is a Structural Failure, not a Lifestyle Choice
Perhaps the most striking finding is the scale of digital exclusion within social housing.
Despite £20 billion of investment in full-fibre infrastructure over the past decade, many social homes – especially in the South East – remain unconnected. Residents frequently rely on pay-as-you-go mobile data, shared devices, and insecure connections.
This is not just an inconvenience. Participants heard that it locks people out of:
- GP appointments and virtual wards
- Education and employment platforms
- Welfare systems and financial management
- Remote monitoring and preventive care
The sprint characterises this explicitly as a market failure. Social tariffs exist but are complex to access and poorly designed for the households who need them most. In effect, the people who would benefit most from connectivity are least able to secure it.
That mismatch has consequences. Without connectivity, councils cannot manage housing stock proactively. Damp and mould are detected late. Vulnerabilities go unseen. Health systems default to more labour-intensive, reactive models of care.
The question the report forces policymakers – in the South East and nationally – to confront is blunt: if we would not accept a home without electricity, why do we accept one without broadband?
The Connected Homes Proposition
Rather than produce another abstract call for reform, the sprint set out a practical Connected Homes model.
At its core, this means:
- Universal, reliable broadband as standard in social housing
- Simplified and automatic access to affordable tariffs
- Integration with housing management, health, and care systems
- Local digital skills and device support
- Clear governance and accountability for data and outcomes
This is not technology for its own sake. It is about creating the conditions for prevention.
A connected home enables predictive maintenance rather than emergency repair. It supports adult social care to blend virtual and in-person support. It reduces unnecessary travel and helps residents access work and training. It underpins Net Zero ambitions through smarter energy use.
Critically, the business case is credible. Evidence cited during the sprint suggests that place-based connectivity pilots can become self-funding over time through service savings and improved asset management. Even a single household moving into sustained work delivers fiscal savings of £25,000–£30,000 per year.
In growth terms, that is not marginal.
The South East Pressure Cooker
The South East context makes the case even sharper.
Population growth, displacement from London, temporary accommodation and constrained land supply are creating structural strain across Kent, Surrey, Sussex, and surrounding areas. Families are moved miles from schools, GPs, and employment. Children lose continuity of care. Adults struggle to maintain work.
Planning debates still focus overwhelmingly on housing numbers. Far less attention is paid to whether those homes are connected, integrated, and capable of supporting long-term wellbeing.
The sprint’s diagnosis is uncomfortable for policy makers – we have embedded exclusion into new developments by failing to treat digital infrastructure as a prerequisite for healthy communities.
From Pilot to Policy Delivery
The report proposes a place-based pilot – connecting a defined number of social homes within a single authority area – with clear metrics on service demand, housing condition, resident wellbeing, and economic participation.
The wider ambition is national alignment. Housing, health, digital and local government departments must stop operating in parallel and start sharing ownership of outcomes.
This is where the report becomes politically interesting. It does not argue for endless new funding streams. It argues for alignment, sequencing, and leadership.
If government is serious about shifting from hospital to community, from analogue to digital, and from sickness to prevention, the home is the obvious place to start.
Where Things Go Next
The challenge now is intent.
The technology exists and the infrastructure investment has already been made. Local authorities are willing to pilot. Industry has indicated it can shoulder significant upfront cost where demand is coordinated.
What has been missing is the political confidence to declare broadband a core housing standard and to align planning, social tariff reform, and health strategy accordingly.
The opportunity is significant, with healthier residents, reduced pressure on acute services, stronger local labour markets, and more resilient communities. In growth terms, connected homes are not a side project – they are foundational.
As the Get Britain Growing agenda gathers pace, this report provides a tangible example of what system reform looks like in practice – a scalable intervention rooted in the places people live.
The real test will not be whether we agree with the analysis. It will be whether national and local leaders are prepared to act on it.
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(Photo: Silverstone Communications)