‘They look like homes for rich people’: why Britain should look to Europe for its council housing revolution

26 comments

1. [removed]

2. They usually are dreadful brutalist concrete blocks. They’re not too nice either.

3. Council houses are a scam. Why should the government steal from you with higher taxes, just to devalue your property and house criminals nearby? Nevermind the huge amount of corruption and black markets that come with any sort of market restrictions and bureaucracy like this.

   Just let people build everything, everywhere. Then working people will be able to buy their own homes and have a stake in their home and their local area.

4. I paid a lot of money for my house and it’s ugly. I don’t want poor people living in homes that look like they’re for rich people. I would rather feel sorry for them living in ugly poverty. If that makes me an arsehole then so be it.

5.  If they are cheap to construct, well built and efficient get knocking them up. 

    Council housing shouldn’t be aimed specifically for people out of work or those that can’t work they should be a viable options for working class people like myself. 

6. Need a government back national home building company. Singapore has one called HDB (housing development board) and they build council flats non-stop. Many are very nice and there are always new developments nonstop. This is definitely something the UK should do. I disagree with their current approach giving more power to local councils on this. It’s not working.

7. I guess they are alright if you like living in concrete sardine cans.

8. Verily, I say unto thee, hear now the words of the Lord of Housing: **Contrary to popular belief, if ye take unlearned peasants and place them within the grandest of mansions, lo, ye shall behold their swift descent into decay!** It is as when ye take a pig and place it in a fine garden—doth it not soon wallow in the muck and trample the flowers? So too, the unwashed masses shall ruin that which is given unto them, for their hearts are as swine in the mud, ever desirous of disorder and neglect.

   Let it be known, the wealth of a place doth not reside in the house, but in the soul of the people dwelling therein. For where the rich gather, there is cleanliness, order, and preservation; they pay great coin not for the structure, but to be separated from the filth and disorder that cometh from the rabble. Would ye not rather keep a healthy distance from the pigsty? So too do the wealthy build their sanctuaries far from the swarm, for they know that a mansion placed amidst the swine will soon be trampled and besmirched.

   And yet, ye foolish ones, doth it not perplex thee that every man who builds a home for the poor, with the best of intentions, finds his work undone by the hand of those who cannot care for it? It is not the house that needs reform, but the hearts of those who would turn it into a den of ruin! And thus the rich, wise in their ways, shall never suffer such folly, for they have learned well: A palace among pigs is still a sty.

   Amen.

9. we fucking solved this problem in the 50s; we don’t need to look anywhere but here.

   Thatcher fucked housing and ruined boomers, remove Right To Buy and start building council houses again.

   [https://youtu.be/jZpLiJdIGbs](https://youtu.be/jZpLiJdIGbs)

10. Wouldn’t get built anywhere becaue it “doesn’t match the local area”.

    Without bending housing developers over a barrel for planning permission to make sure it fits the local area how are the council meant to take massive under the table bribes?

11. The last thing we need is fancier social housing lmao. Just give them everything, do they want my car too?

12. Some stunning options in there. Be careful looking at France for examples though lol, or we’ll get HLMs..

13. It’s so easy and cheap to build insulated efficient housing. Like to the point where heating is almost not needed. But we won’t because A) the population hates the idea of owning older 1930s while “lay abouts” get new stuff for “free” and B) it means moving away from brick and mortar construction which is what we all cream over for some reason

14. The Guardian is doing its usual Le Corbusier thing. I totally agree new council housing should be better than in its swansong in the 60s and seventies, but let’s not kid ourselves that building the unconventional doesn’t require unconventional management. Doing the ordinary won’t work with it. We have got used to minimal management, inadequate maintenance budgets and a narrow, specific groups of tenants. Council housing on inception was intended for the skilled working class and that should be considered when building anew.

15. Anything would be better than the old fashioned shit they keep building

16. There would be a section of British society very upset if affordable housing looked like somewhere they would want to live.

17. Good get on with it and stop with this nonsense of putting social housing in the middle of new build estates. You don’t work your bollocks off to get out of a council estate to then end up like it being like you never left because of scum neighbours.

18. We need to end the obsession of living in a house and build up instead. Surely it would be far more cost efficient to build flats than houses.

19. The idea of building social housing in the UK mainly tends to build them with the cheapest materials and amount possible and then the management of the houses at high cost with the taxpayers paying for it.

20. I’ve delivered parcels to a block of flats (new ones, or at least not old) in Manchester that are shocking in how much they resemble a prison*. I mean inside, they’re brutal spaces. I’ve also delivered to old people’s homes that are lovely and warm.

    There’s class hatred in the country, as far as I’m concerned. It’s not just ‘we want to make money’, we don’t prioritise improving the basics.

    *so having another look at the photos I took, the floor is brown grey, the walls are white horizontal tiles, the doors are chunky grey with little windows, ceiling is white, honestly if you were to look at it you’d thunk it was a prison or asylum, intended to look clinical and dry. The environment affects people. There’s no need to be that clinical. You couldn’t open the chunky doors on the floors to reach address doors, each resident had a key, and yet the huge lobby (a huge brown curved seat) displayed a sign saying ‘no leaving parcels here’). None of it is accidental when you can go to more expensive high rise flats in a slightly nicer area and they’re…nicer inside.

21. We’re a very strange people. We want nice things and things to look good, but we don’t want them to be built and we don’t want people getting them

22. There wouldn’t be a council housing crisis if people that didn’t need them moved to private renting or purchasing, instead of using them for more disposable income.

23. We’re obsessed with building in block & brick in the UK, everything built on site start to finish one brick at a time.

    We need to embrace prefabricated construction methods to speed up construction, build energy efficient houses and reduce cost.

24. We’ll see how posh they look after 10 years of their tenants being there

25. The Cambridge Estate in Kingston upon Thames is getting this treatment it’s going from 3000 people to 8000. The units will retail at 800k so completely affordable to the likes of you and me.

    940 will be affordable 800 will be council, so less than the old estate by quite a margin.

26. “On the continent, stylish, sustainable, community-minded social housing is a given”

    This is a bullshit generalization. At least in the Netherlands, and probably other places too, the social housing is generally old, crappy and still very hard to obtain

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