I think there is a strong temptation for this when there is a large gap between the value of the social housing to the occupant and the value of the social housing on the market.
This flat is in Victoria which is quite central in London. I would expect you could provide more social housing at the same cost in some of the outer zones. There is obviously a trade off where the increased amount of housing from going further out is not worth the inconvenience to the occupants. However, I would expect this trade off kicks in well outside of zone 1.
For the sake of argument let's assume you could double the zone 1 social housing by moving it to zone 2/3. That seems like a pretty big failure in policy.
This flat is in Victoria which is quite central in London. I would expect you could provide more social housing at the same cost in some of the outer zones. There is obviously a trade off where the increased amount of housing from going further out is not worth the inconvenience to the occupants. However, I would expect this trade off kicks in well outside of zone 1.
For the sake of argument let's assume you could double the zone 1 social housing by moving it to zone 2/3. That seems like a pretty big failure in policy.