Workers in housing management jobs should work with communities to improve green spaces and brownfield land at social housing estates, the Commission for Architecture and the Built Environment (CABE) has said following a new study.

In a recent research paper, Community Green: Using local spaces to tackle inequality and improve health, CABE found that less than one percent of people currently living on social housing estates in the UK take advantage of the green space available to them. According to CABE, thousands of hectares of undeveloped land are going unused because of their poor quality.

CABE says that more needs to be done to improve these spaces, calling upon those in housing management jobs to work with community groups to make it easier for residents to improve their own green spaces as well as calling for more scope for communities to take over temporarily vacant land.

More than half of the 500 social housing residents interviewed in their study said that if green spaces were improved, they would do more exercise. Half of respondents also said that if such areas were improved, their mental health would be boosted.

The researcher's findings will be of particular relevance to those in public sector housing jobs as local authorities prepare for budget cuts. Social housing managers will be encouraged to follow the government's mandate of "doing more for less" through efficiency savings as funding levels are reduced, including making more effective use of existing facilities.

As well as under-utilisation of existing green space, the report revealed that there were regional and cultural differences in the amount of undeveloped land available to social housing estates. Inside Housing reports that there is 11 times more green space available in areas where less than 40% of residents are black or minority ethnic than in areas where the population is more diverse.

Different groups were also less comfortable in their local green spaces; for example only half of Bangladeshi people said they felt safe in their local green space, in comparison with 3/4 of white respondents.