After a period of commercialisation and diversification within Housing Associations, the manifesto commitments of the main political parties suggest yet more changes are on the horizon.

Housing associations have enjoyed constant growth in their supply of housing over the last 30 years. In 1980, housing association provision made up just 2% of the total housing stock. By 2012, this figure grew to 10%.

This growth was largely effected by a significant decline in local authority provision, caused by the ‘Right to Buy' reforms of the Thatcher era and the 1988 Housing Act, which meant that housing associations became the Government's de facto preferred supplier of social housing.