ABSTRACT
This chapter explores the legal, managerial and policy changes that have contributed to this growth in participation and considers the potential of tenant participation to be a vehicle for social inclusion. A new middle route also emerged at this time called an Estate Management Board, a legally constituted partnership between officers and tenants to jointly decide policy and its implementation on a given estate. The Housing Act 1980, in the main, gave tenants basic individual rights surrounding their contract with their landlord. Animosity was fuelled by the arrogance of government ministers who denied tenants the right to vote on the grounds that their understanding of the policy was incomplete. Far from being viewed as a sector which had brought decision-making out to the people, local government was very much seen as part of the problem. Indeed the inventiveness of central government in trying to lure tenants away from local authorities has been startling.
