Single Aspect Blog

Five years ago I wrote “Why sink estates exist” in despair at the course right to buy had taken and the growth of buy to let mortgages.  Now Stephen Farrall of the University of Sheffield has written a similar piece only based on data rather than hearsay. I’ve reproduced it here with permission under the Creative Commons Licence.  The article was originally published on The Conversation.

Stephen Farrall, Professor of Criminology, University of Sheffield

This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.

Five years ago I attended Progressive London 2010 at which Karen Buck was speaking, among others.  She identified then the problems that will come to pass with the Governments recent attack on tenure.

Karen Buck was superb with a long talk about the possible loss of secure tenure of council tenants should a Conservative Government be elected and implement the plans outlined by Localis in Principles their now infamous document on Tory proposals for council housing.

She drew a parallel with the experiences of black migrants from the American South coming to Chicago in the 1940s and becoming the victims of slum landlords while suffering the indignities of being “frequent movers”, people unable to take their place in society for want of a stable home address. [The Promised Land – Nicholas Lemann] Karen put forward the view that in the absence of secure tenure and having only an AST with two months to quit, council tenants would become a transient population, unlikely to be registered with a GP, their children changing schools, unlikely to be on the electoral register and to vote. She pointed out that Conservative think council tenants are second class citizens.

Karen Buck is always worth listening to about housing.

Council tenants lose lifetime right to live in property – The Guardian

Click image for audio and see Tweet

https://twitter.com/mossbat/status/632087473024311297

If you want to skip the introductions the interview proper starts at 9m20s in.

Heard through @municipaldreams

Click image for film

Last night ITV devoted their programme to the London housing crisis in the course of which they visited Cressingham Gardens Estate. That clip is linked above and the 30m programme from the link below.

We will not get the new social housing we need until there is a profound leftward shift in Government. Whether that comes from a Labour / SNP deal or elsewhere remains to be seen but without it I fear another five years of expulsions

Map ‏@onalifeglug HT @gamecounsel & @CorpWatchUK

Five years ago I wrote this:-

“Among Tory boroughs across London, there seems now to be a disease spreading ever wider that the land on which council tenants live is available for development”

[Tory struck out 7/11/12 owing to realisation that they’re all at it. Hello Southwark (Lab)! – Ed.]

Follow the fight to save London’s social housing @michaellondonsf and planning stuff.

Click image above for film

In part one of Regeneration Game, host Daisy-May Hudson visits the Carpenters Estate in Newham, the borough with the biggest homelessness crisis in London. With Westfield shopping centre, the Olympic site and excellent transport links surrounding the area, the land on which people’s homes stand has rocketed in value. The council has said the Carpenters Estate is no longer “viable” and has been slowly trying to relocate residents over the last eight years – but a group of local mums are leading the fight back.

Click image

Michael, why aren’t you Mayor? You’d make a better one than Boris.

If I could take everybody in London under 30 back to the 1970s for a day and show them the council housing we had then, and point out that they themselves could have applied for a flat and got one in under a year in most cases, they’d be in heaven.  What have we lost under the Tories and New Labour???

New towers on the edge of the City of London are set to put one of the country’s oldest social housing projects in the shade . . . https://portfolio.cpl.co.uk/CIBSE/201504/general-news/

Manifesto for the destruction of council estates – HT @michaellondonsf

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This used to be an article about Carpenters but the BBC have withdrawn the film and it’s not on Youtube so this is just a marker point now that the film was ever made.

I’ve got the film or part of it on a DVD somewhere, it’s a question of digging it out and uploading it.