“Demand from the social sector stood between the housebuilding sector and near-oblivion,” wrote Matthew Bailes, in Housing Today last month. He was reminiscing about his time as a senior civil servant in the department responsible for housing in the midst of the 2008 financial crisis and subsequent recession.

As anybody familiar with the housebuilding market at that time will tell you, the housing association sector stepped in and kept development going – and the construction supply chain moving – as the activity of the big private housebuilders slowed rapidly.

And this historically has often been the case. Housing associations’ business model, underpinned by high levels of government grant and a steady and secure rental income stream (again indirectly supported by the taxpayer through housing benefit to some residents) means that they are more insulated than others from economic storms. And, of course, demand for low-cost rental housing if anything only grows in difficult economic times.