“The right to buy council homes remains iniquitous”
November 23rd, 2011
I do love my readers. So often somebody will type something into Google which sums up the situation better than I have so far and either leads me on to new knowledge or summarises a situation very well. Such is the above (from Norwich I think). If it was you, thank you and I hope you enjoyed reading through the long exchange between myself and Mizzentop the other day at https://www.singleaspect.org.uk/?p=9450
Council Housing RIP
November 19th, 2011
Millions of council tenants would be allowed to buy their homes at half price under government plans to extend the right-to-buy. The discount, double that currently available, is part of the government’s long-awaited, and much delayed, housing strategy paper, due to be published on Monday.
https://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2011/nov/19/council-tenants-buy-half-price
Of course it remains to be seen if they actually implement this, if those council tenants so entitled can afford to buy, even with the discount, but clearly Cameron and Co. are determined to finish what the Iron Lady could not.
Guardian comments – right to buy
November 18th, 2011
UPDATE: 29/9/13 Oh bollocks, I was trolled. I’ve just seen this exchange on a completely different article:-
Good luck with your trolling attempts, Mizzentop / RJM1968 / BusinessLeader. Don’t work too hard – the champagne bar in the Midland Hotel will be opening soon.
https://discussion.theguardian.com/comment-permalink/27455358
Taken from:-
Austerity protesters outnumber Conservative delegates conference
I wish I’d spotted him first then I wouldn’t have wasted all that effort debating a troll. I’ll leave the rest here for you to amuse yourself with.
November 18th 2011
I’ve spent the day bashing seven bells out of the keyboard in support of council housing and against RTB in a discussion on the Guardian website with a gentleman from South Wales.
I’m Piecesofeight.
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16 November 2011 8:26PM
Thatcher was guilty of the greatest sin in my book of selling off council houses. She caused the housing crisis we have now and for that I could never forgive her.
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Right to buy III
October 5th, 2011
I’ve written articles on the subject of right to buy in the past. They are Right to buy II, Right to buy and Why sink estates exist. They have been part of a journey towards understanding what’s gone wrong with council housing since Mrs Thatcher was elected in 1979.
Adam Gray has written a short article that encapsulates the reasons for the demise of public housing provision in the last thirty years which covers all the reasons I’ve found and more and is well worth reading.
Right to buy 2 damaging policy
UPDATE: 6/10/11 This today from Inside Housing
https://www.insidehousing.co.uk/home/home/right-to-buy-sales-hit-rock-bottom-28995
Old link
https://www.insidehousing.co.uk/ihstory.aspx?storycode=6518252
UPDATE: 18/10/11 This very relevant article today from the Guardian
World’s End Chelsea
September 19th, 2011
Great estate, love the burnt umber bricks, so much better to look at than raw concrete. Lovely use of communal garden space within the courtyard level above the car park at 1st floor level. Have some doubts about the – bordering on – single aspect tower block flats,but they have at least been designed so that every flat has a SW facing window even if it’s only one, and they are popular.
Nicky Gavron on mixed estates
August 31st, 2011
“The mayor wants private, market housing to be built in areas with lots of social housing. But his plan does not seek new social housing in areas with lots of private homes.”
An article from the Guardian today highlights yet again where the Tory London administration is failing when it comes to housing policy. Nicky Gavron has been spot on with her analysis of where the problem lies and has been saying this for some time but nobody seems to be listening.
From Here to Modernity
August 22nd, 2011
Click image to see full Wordle
Kirsty Wark charts the rise and fall of the Modern movement from the 1930s to its fall from popularity, in three half hour programmes made for the Open University.
Here follows a comprehensive list of the buildings featured in the programme, in the form of stills. It is not by any means a review of the programme but rather intended as an introduction by way of showing the content.
Title shot – click above for larger image
The link to the Open University details about the series is here:-
Ferrier Kidbrooke – death of a housing ideal
August 19th, 2011
Welcome to the Ferrier Kidbrooke estate, this is was the view as you leave left the station.
Bottom centre, a row of shops, much diminished now owing to lack of custom because the estate is mostly empty. Bottom right the corner of a poster put up by the developers, Berkeley Homes for the new Kidbrooke Village.
Brief history of housing in C20th
August 18th, 2011
The history is pretty straightforward if depressing in that before the war large amounts of housing throughout the country were unfit for human habitation and had been built during the industrial revolution to the standards of the time which for working people were often what the employer could get away with.
The 1930s was seen as a time to start clearing the slums and large housing blocks such as Quarry Hill in Leeds and Gerard Gardens and others were built in Liverpool, it’s worth seeing the film Homes for Workers to see what was being done at that time.
After the war the Modernists had their chance to rebuild the housing of Britain and in addition to many houses with gardens large numbers of flats were built often on estates, with varying degrees of success, let’s not forget the new towns either.
Unfortunately the situation in the inner cities was less good. London had much new housing built but this fell short of that required leaving many people trapped in poor quality privately rented accommodation with the scandal of Rachmanism that marked the early 1960s.
With families being broken up by social services if they became homeless, the film Cathy Come Home by Ken Loach was a cry for help for those families so troubled and led, ten years on to a change in the law such that council homes were no longer allocated to those who could show good references and a record of employment, but rather to those most in need.
While a worthy aim the long term effect of this policy when combined with the inevitable effects of right to buy has been to create sink estates where in earlier decades lived a range of people of all backgrounds.
Which brings us back to Ferrier. From the podcast linked below we learn that former inmates of the asylums were housed in small numbers on Ferrier and there was of course the compounding effect of right to buy where those who could afford to bought and moved out, letting the property, often to recipients of benefits. Some who could not afford to but bought anyway, defaulted and had their homes repossessed thus losing their security of tenure and reverting to the bottom of the waiting list, and lastly those left behind who could not afford to buy even with the discount.
UPDATE: This gives a good account of public housing in the last century:-
Alton West Roehampton
August 16th, 2011
A few photographs taken on a flying visit. This estate is covered comprehensively in City of Towers, High Rise Dreams, Homes for Heroes and Utopia London.
