In a time of pressing need for more social housing, it was heartening to read Oliver Wainwright’s article (Home truths: The councils building a housing revolution against all the odds, 29 October). But while many local authorities are to be congratulated on how they are managing to deliver such well-designed and well-considered social housing developments, despite difficult financial circumstances and the challenges of right to buy, others are still demolishing excellent examples of progressive postwar estates.
This is a waste in social and environmental terms, as well as an architectural loss. For instance, Lambeth council is pressing ahead with its plans to demolish two of the most exceptional postwar social housing schemes in London – the Central Hill estate and Cressingham Gardens – both of which have been earmarked for redevelopment. They were designed and constructed in the late 1960s and 70s by Lambeth Architects’ Department under Ted Hollamby, who became a leader in high-density housing with low buildings, using a variety of unit types to suit different age groups and family sizes.
The same creativity and financial ingenuity that the best councils apply to new housing should be applied to renovation and updating these estates. Without this, great architecture cannot be maintained and redevelopment seems like the only option. Without a change in attitude, how long will it be before today’s lauded schemes look tatty and unloved?
Catherine Croft
Director, The Twentieth Century Society
• Your article highlighting how necessity has been the mother of invention for local councils circumventing central government constraints to build council housing coincided with a celebration this week at Hackney town hall, marking 100 years of council house building in the borough. A hundred years ago people on Hackney’s estates were drawn from similar backgrounds. Today, we have the world on our doorstep. The differences throw up challenges, but also provide a wealth of social opportunities. Those lucky enough to be moving into new council houses across the country can look forward to shared experiences, hardships overcome, friendships and laughter. It is a tragedy that central government refuses to recognise the social benefits of decent council housing and fund it properly.
Cllr Penny Wrout
Labour, Victoria ward, Hackney council
• While local authorities are building a new generation of increasingly groundbreaking council housing, there is a huge gulf between this best practice and planning standards for commercial housing. Norwich provides a stark example. Its new council tenants enjoy living in prize-winning Passivhaus buildings which are warm, cheap to heat, and make good climate sense. However, elsewhere, the council has consented to a commercial development (Anglia Square) that has a regressive energy plan out of the 20th century.
While the government needs to wake up to the council house revolution, it even more needs to tackle the continuing poor standards in some commercial developments. This can only be achieved with a root-and-branch review of the national planning policy framework, so that the innovative standards of new council housing become the norm across all housing.
Dr Andrew Boswell
Former Norwich Green party councillor
• Dr Janice Morphet, quoted in Oliver Wainwright’s article, is right: councils haven’t been able to do what they need to do. They have been held back by a parliamentary culture about property that has not moved much further than asking the tenants round for a glass of sherry before Christmas. The 1867 Reform Act granted the vote to all householders, as well as lodgers, who paid rent of £10 a year or more. The vote was given to agricultural landowners and tenants with small amounts of land, and to men in urban areas who met the property qualification. There has been progress, but property rights continue to trump human rights to a secure affordable home in the UK.
Rev Paul Nicolson
Taxpayers Against Poverty
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