Housing Before BTL

Generali

The housing and homelessness charity Shelter is 50 this year. Shortly after its birth, photographer Nick Hedges was dispatched to cities in England and Scotland to document the lives of families living in squalor.

http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/gallery/2016/feb/06/gimme-shelter-hard-lives-in-british-cities-1969-72

For those that believe that state-owned accommodation is a panacea:

Mr and Mrs Milne and their four children lived in a council-owned house in Vincent Crescent, Balsall Heath. Apart from the poor state of the property – no bathroom, no hot water, outside lavatory, inside walls running with damp – these children were sleeping, in the middle of winter, on two sodden seat cushions covered by a couple of old macs. There was no heating in the room, the snow lay thick outside and the windows were broken

[Picture 17]

PasturesNew

The adults in those photos (taken ~1970) are the "lucky" Boomers we hear so much about.

TheeMaskedTurnip

It's never been easy to buy your own gaff.

cells

Good link with interesting photos. There are also a few documentaries about council estates in the 1970s on youtube which shows what they were like in the past

Generali

cells wrote: »

Good link with interesting photos. There are also a few documentaries about council estates in the 1970s on youtube which shows what they were like in the past

I recall that the poorly maintained house/flat on the council estate was the go-to current affairs piece in a slow week.

The stories were much the same: poor workmanship coupled with little or no property maintenance. And then the ramifications for the people living there: sky high energy bills (pre-privatisation of the utilities:eek:); homes going unheated; children getting respiratory problems as a result of the appalling living conditions.

BTL might not be a perfect system of housing and certainly the lack of any real security of tenure creates problems of its own but surely it's better than people living as they did in those pictures.

vivatifosi

PasturesNew wrote: »

The adults in those photos (taken ~1970) are the "lucky" Boomers we hear so much about.

So are all of the kids if they are aged six or over.

There are only two positives in those photos...

The link between poverty and obesity had yet to happen, possibly because people couldn't afford to eat as much, and

You could play in the street... very few cars so less risk of being run over.

vivatifosi

Generali wrote: »

I recall that the poorly maintained house/flat on the council estate was the go-to current affairs piece in a slow week.

The stories were much the same: poor workmanship coupled with little or no property maintenance. And then the ramifications for the people living there: sky high energy bills (pre-privatisation of the utilities:eek:); homes going unheated; children getting respiratory problems as a result of the appalling living conditions.

BTL might not be a perfect system of housing and certainly the lack of any real security of tenure creates problems of its own but surely it's better than people living as they did in those pictures.

I wonder if Rising Damp would make it onto tv now... we watched it then because we understood that's how many lived.

ukcarper

Generali wrote: »

http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/gallery/2016/feb/06/gimme-shelter-hard-lives-in-british-cities-1969-72

For those that believe that state-owned accommodation is a panacea:



[Picture 17]

One bad council owned property compared to hundreds of privately owned properties. My experience was completely different our private rented property was much worse than all my friends council houses and the council house we got later was a vast improvement.

Graham_Devon

There were bad eggs, sure, but not all of them - not even the majority were bad.

Infact, many of the ex council stock now goes for a song due to how well they were built, the size of the plots and their proximity to town.

There were mistakes made with concrete cancer etc. However, you learn from those mistakes - it's how we have got where we are with everything in the UK. We made plenty of mistakes in the industrial revolution, but we didn't just said "oh, can't do that anymore".

I don't understand why people look back at mistakes and assume we have to make them again should any council building take place.

I can show plenty of privately built property which has gone spectacularly wrong. No ones suggesting we get rid of private builders?

westernpromise

Graham_Devon wrote: »

No ones suggesting we get rid of private builders?

"We" don't have to. If a builder puts houses up shoddily or in the wrong place, they go bust. Problem solved.

Graham_Devon

westernpromise wrote: »

"We" don't have to. If a builder puts houses up shoddily or in the wrong place, they go bust. Problem solved.

Err, no they don't.

It's not that simple - will come as a shock I know