Social housing residents fear that the economic downturn and selling of properties, will threaten affordable tenancies. Social housing group Peabody owns and manages 19,500 properties, providing homes for more than 50,000 people. A total of £30.8 million generated through the sale of the properties was used to fund improvements to existing properties. An additional £10 million was invested in building new houses in 2008/2009.

Peabody is one of the largest and oldest social housing providers, meaning it should cope with the recession, but it is one of the lucky ones. Bad investments, depreciating land values and banks being unwilling to lend to house builders resulted a year ago in six housing associations being placed on a watch list by new social housing regulator, the Tenant Services Association (TSA).  These housing associations have now been removed off the watch list, and in 2008/2009, 93 associations had the value of their assets written down by £167 million.

The government announced its own new formula last month to cut rents, which led to an objection from housing associations fearing it would jeopardise the future of affordable housing. A spokesman for the TSA said: "Housing associations are demonstrating that they have the financial capacity to survive the downturn without impact on delivering services to tenants. In comparison with some of the commercial builders, who have written down losses by up to 35% of their value, housing associations are still selling homes, securing new investment to deliver affordable housing, and remaining financially stable."

Social housing companies are being accused of selling off large chunks of its property, but Peabody chief executive Stephen Howlett denies that his company are doing this: "Like many large housing associations, Peabody sometimes sells some of its homes in order to reinvest in the rest of its portfolio. We have managed our risk effectively and are in a strong position."