Thursday 1 August 2019

Shameful Neglect of Council Housing

Good quality housing is of course an essential necessity for all and yesterday was a significant anniversary in relation to the provision of council housing. Architect George Clarke pulls no punches in this interview for the Big Issue as to the current housing crisis and what needs to be done to sort it:- 

George Clarke blasts the state for shirking its housing responsibility

“Politicians can sit there and blame everybody else in the world, but as far as I’m concerned, the state has a responsibility to provide homes for those most in need.”

Architect George Clarke is the amiable presenter of a host of Channel 4 home building and home improvement shows. On programmes like Restoration Man and Amazing Spaces he follows inspirational architectural projects offering an expert’s eye and warm support to dreamers building brighter futures. The shows have made him a national treasure.

But Clarke is furious about the housing crisis and the way council housing has been undermined, sold off and almost fatally diminished in recent decades. His new documentary – released to mark the centenary of the Addison Act, the almost revolutionary Parliamentary bill which in 1919 heralded a state-built housing boom in Britain – is vital viewing for anyone with an interest in housing and frustrated by a failure to fix the current crisis.

Clarke is on fighting form when he welcomes The Big Issue to his production offices in Brixton, South London. This is, he says, a passion project.

“I was brought up on a council housing estate and I saw how really good, well-designed houses in a well-designed estate with great public spaces and amenities created a great community,” says Clarke, who revisits his childhood home in Sunderland where his mother still lives as part of his new film. When I was 16 I used to walk from my council estate to the architect’s practice where I did my apprenticeship every day. That is when I got a massive passion for homes and housing. Until those in power really fully understand how transformative a good, affordable, decent home can be for people we are never going to solve the housing crisis.”

The Addison Act was one of the most important pieces of legislation of the 20th century. It transformed housing provision in Britain, placing a duty on councils to provide homes for people most in need, establishing council housing as we came to know it. The plan was ambitious. If the target of 500,000 new homes, to be built with government subsidy, proved hard to meet (as have, it seems, most government housing targets in the intervening years), the 213,000 homes that were built laid the foundations of a new system. It was sparked by the need to house returning soldiers from the First World War. Homes Fit For Heroes was the tagline, and politicians of all stripes got behind the idea of state provision of housing.

The Becontree Estate in Dagenham was among the most ambitious and extensive new neighbourhoods. “This says to me that 100 years ago the government cared,” says Clarke in the new film, surveying the quality of design of the houses and the neighborhood spaces the residents enjoyed. It shouldn’t be hard to do it again, he says, to have some actual inter-departmental joined-up thinking.

“The Addison Act was revolutionary because it was the health minister Dr Christopher Addison – not the housing minister – who said that truly affordable, state-built, well- maintained homes would be the staple of a modern and new society, providing housing for those most in need. Now, wouldn’t it be amazing if the health minister said the same today? Wouldn’t it be amazing if the health minister talked to the housing minister talked to the education minister and realised that if we provided a huge amount of good-quality, affordable, stable homes for people most in need, it would transform the health of many people, it would transform the mental wellbeing of many people, and it would even transform the standard of education that our kids are receiving?”

Clarke points out of the window towards Dawson’s Heights in Dulwich, built in 1964. This imposing and impressive architectural marvel was designed by Kate Macintosh when she was just 26 and working for the London Borough of Southwark’s architecture department. Imagine that happening now. The 300 high-quality new homes were built after crucial legislation based on the Parker Morris Committee’s 1961 report, which set down minimum standards for new homes. A focus on quality as well as quantity followed the housebuilding boom in the wake of the Second World War.

“Loads of people want to live there,” says Clarke. “One problem now is that with so many cutbacks councils don’t even have architectural departments. The Greater London Council used to employ hundreds of architects doing the social good, doing the right thing for society. All that expertise is gone. Which is why it is easier for governments today to go to private industry.”

This, says Clarke, is a huge problem when it comes to providing homes for those most in need. “There are some terrible developers out to make a massive amount of money to the detriment of communities and society,” he says.

“One of the biggest problems is that the home to them is not much more than a commodity to be traded and transacted, rather than home being an affordable place to live. There are some big, big, big powerful housebuilders out there whose only interest is to make a shitload of money and push up their share price. They move on from one site to the next without any regard for what is being built and how long it is going to last. And when it comes to council housing, they want to get rid of it.”

One century on from the Addison Act, hundreds of people in need of homes are now being offered temporary accommodation in converted shipping containers. Some accommodation has no windows as rules about minimum space for dwellings are circumvented thanks to new laws in 2015 about converting offices to residential use.

“We have massively gone backwards,” says Clarke. “In the 1950s and 1960s, if you weren’t doing the right thing on housing, you were unelectable. Now, they don’t give a shit. And the reason they don’t give a shit is because they in effect privatised the whole system so it is not their problem. The Welfare State was built on health, education and housing – if you decide to ignore housing, it’s a farce, isn’t it?”

How did it come to this? When did society’s safety net stop working with regard to housing? When did we become beholden to profit-chasing developers and in a race to the bottom regarding standards? The big change came in 1980, one year in to Margaret Thatcher’s government. The Right To Buy policy was heralded as making home ownership a possibility for thousands of working-class and low-income people and families. More than one million council homes were sold off in the 1980s alone. Expanding home-ownership to those for whom it had been cut off was not a bad plan. What came next was. The problem was the tiny, tiny proportion of housing stock that was replaced.

“My own very, very, very personal view is that it was Tory bribery. It was a clever policy by Thatcher to buy the working-class vote,” says Clarke. “I have seen lots of people benefit from Right To Buy. It has given them stability. It has given them home ownership. But it is bribing one generation and pulling up a ladder from the next generation coming through. And that is why we are in the fucking mess we are in. I would scrap Right To Buy. We are at a time of national emergency.”

An increasing share of income raised from Right To Buy went directly to the Treasury, rather than the councils who were losing their housing stock alongside a guaranteed revenue stream. Council housing numbers plummeted, from around 6.5 million in 1979 to just two million by 2017. If selling off the family silver was harmful, failing to replace it then renting it back at vastly inflated prices seems positively reckless.

“Selling off state assets at a massively discounted rate and not replacing that house is just stupid,” says Clarke. “And worse still, more than 40 per cent of all the homes that have been sold off under Right To Buy are now in the hands of private landlords – who are renting them out at considerable profit, quite often to people on housing benefit. It is then costing the state a shitload of money. That, to me, is one of the biggest scandals of all.”

The tragedy of the Grenfell Tower fire should have been a moment to take stock. If ever there was a time to look at how this country can do housing policy better, and to ensure secure and safe housing comes before profit, it is surely now. Clarke lives less than 100 metres from Grenfell. He is unimpressed with the political response to the 2017 tragedy.

“It is more bollocks from the government,” he says. “If they listened to people in the industry who really understand, the changes should have been made already. Secondary means of escape, proper equipment for the fire brigade, the list is a very easy one. But the government are weak. Grenfell is the tip of the iceberg. It could have happened anywhere and it can still happen in the 160 buildings that still have combustible cladding. If it had happened in Sunderland or Glasgow, we’d think it was because they had no money. But it shows it can happen not only in the wealthiest borough in Britain, but also in a building that has only just been refurbished. Isn’t that 100 times worse? It is a scandal on the biggest scale you could imagine. It should bring the government down but the fuckers wouldn’t even turn up and pay their respects until they were put under pressure. You can tell how angry I am.”

So what would Clarke do? You are housing minister, I tell him, I have just appointed you. What are you going to do on your first day in office? He barely blinks before launching into a long list of proposals. “I would do about 20 things in the first half hour. I would bring in a policy to build more council housing. I would give councils the power to be able to build again.

“I would put in a long-term housing strategy and get cross-party consensus so that policy would be set in law and be followed for 40 or 50 years, I would do everything to eradicate homelessness – and set myself the target of doing it in one year. I would make sure the money is there, even if it meant higher taxation. I would ban combustible cladding and say there needs to be secondary means of escape, smoke alarms, sprinkler systems and proper maintenance programmes for every high-rise building. I would make sure there were controlled rents and a minimum standard for housing. I would increase building regulations – everyone says that would put up house prices, but that is an urban myth, a threat by the private housebuilding industry to stop governments improving building standards. And I would say that all housing in Britain by 2030 has to be zero-carbon. It would be a long day in the office and everybody would say that the state can’t afford to do it. Well, we can’t afford not to do it.”

Clarke is not yet in charge of housing policy, although he may get a few votes based on the above. However, he is actively seeking to improve council house provision. We need, he says, to build 100,000 new council houses every year for at least five years. To show how it can be done, Clarke is working with Manchester City Council on a new development.

“It is a big step by Manchester Council to commit to building council housing when everything is stacked against them,” he says. “We want to build housing that is truly affordable while raising the design and space standards. I am hoping it will help eradicate, or at least minimise, the stigma associated with council housing. We are building a low number which I am gutted about. But we have to start somewhere. We are doing 27 houses and some apartments. I want to work with councils, not against them. I have a lot of sympathy for councils, because they are battling against central government and failed policies from parliament.”

Clarke is spearheading a campaign to persuade other councils to follow suit. The centenary of the Addison Act should spark a new wave of state-built housing, he says. Housing fit for the way we live now.

“This is going to be one of the most hard-hitting things I ever say. But the government doesn’t care. Because if it did, it would radically change its policies. It is about action, not words. I am sick to death of hearing the same headlines. We all know what the problem is. We all know what the solution is. We as a nation should be standing here, proud that we have solved the housing crisis, that we have built fantastic state-owned homes, that we have provided homes for those most in need. If we can’t do that there is something fundamentally wrong with the entire system.”

Adrian Lobb

George Clarke’s Council House Scandal on Channel 4 can be viewed here.

6 comments:

  1. https://www.dezeen.com/2019/07/31/shipping-container-micro-home-fraser-brown-mackenna-architects/

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    Replies
    1. Fraser Brown MacKenna Architects has obtained planning permission for a development of micro homes made from shipping containers with green roofs in Aylesbury, England.

      Gatehouse Road is a low-cost housing scheme that is part of a series of regeneration plans for underused sites owned by the Vale of Aylesbury Housing Trust. Currently the site is occupied by garages.

      Fraser Brown MacKenna Architects (FBM Architects) has designed a 26.2-square-metre home that can fit inside each container. The one-bedroom studios will be rented out as social housing or student accommodation.

      According to the architecture studio recycled shipping containers were chosen for the project to keep costs low and allow off-site prefabrication, while re-using existing structures would having an environmental benefit.

      The containers will be arranged in a terrace formation, progressively stepped back from each other to create a private decked area at the front of each micro home. This arrangement also avoids a major sewer pipe running through the Gatehouse Road site.

      Inside each brightly coloured container the micro homes are arranged in a linear fashion, with a living and kitchen area at the front, a separate bathroom, and a bedroom at the rear. Porches are placed at either end.

      Insulation will be added to the walls, roofs and floors of the shipping containers, along with double-glazing at either end, to keep emissions and heating bills low.

      Sedum roofs, a green roof system made from a blanket of pre-grown sedum plants, will top each container house. Grass and trees will be planted around the Gatehouse Road development, and secure bicycle parking and a communal unit with laundry facilities will be located on site.

      Coloured tarmac and geometric paving around the development will mark the area's transformation from an under-used, "anti-social" area to a "home-zone", said the architecture studio.

      FBM Architects was founded in 1991 by Simon Fraser, Angus Brown and Martin MacKenna. The practice previously used shipping containers for a pop-up cafe at Kingston University.

      Their ready availability and inherently modular design makes shipping containers a popular choice for structures that need to be quick and cheap to assemble.

      London is due to get the world's tallest shipping container building – a nine-storey office block designed by Patalab Architecture – and Dixon Jones recently proposed an events space for Edinburgh made from a pile of bright red containers.

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  2. Holloway prison, a prime London location, sold to developers by the MoJ for a rock bottom price of £82m.
    The London mayor has handed over £42m to the developer in the form of a loan which the public will never know the details of.
    The developer is working with London Square, a developer of luxury properties to build 1000 homes on the site.
    1000 luxury homes in a prime London location will show one f*** of a return on £82m investment, and better still when the taxpayer is fronting the development cost.
    I doubt many ordinary folk like tube drivers, retail workers, police officers or nurses will find themselves living on Parkhurst Road anytime soon, nor will they see any benefit from their £42m loan.
    It's just stomach churning the way corporations and private enterprise are assisted by government to help themselves to whatever they want.

    https://www.islingtongazette.co.uk/news/housing-campaigners-lobby-peabody-for-600-social-homes-in-hmp-holloway-site-1-6194028

    'Getafix

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  3. https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-7310207/Probation-officer-didnt-know-licencing-conditions-violent-thug-murdered-father.html

    That’s the newly qualified PO and the SPO hung out to dry, what about those at the top who allowed this to happen and who have thus far failed to step up to support their staff.
    3 months in and left to get on with it. No experienced co-worker and a case load of high and very high risk cases.
    More victims of TR, and the best/ worst is yet to come with OMiC.The same characters in charge with a poor track record and a total disregard for staff.

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  4. The new home secretary, Priti Patel, has said she wants criminals to "literally feel terror" at the thought of breaking the law.

    In her first interview in the role, Ms Patel told the Daily Mail she wants to "empower" the police - and hopes more officers on the streets will make criminals fearful.

    "The Conservative Party is the party of law and order," Ms Patel said.

    She also distanced herself from past comments supporting the death penalty.

    Ms Patel was appointed home secretary in July, when Boris Johnson became prime minister and overhauled the cabinet.

    Her interview comes after she and Mr Johnson announced last week the recruitment of 20,000 more police officers in England and Wales.

    These extra officers will replace the 21,732 police officers lost since 2010, when the Conservatives came to power.

    Ms Patel told the Mail: "I've always felt the Conservative Party is the party of the police and police officers.

    "Quite frankly, with more police officers out there and greater police presence, I want [criminals] to literally feel terror at the thought of committing offences."

    She added: "My focus now is restating our commitment to law and order and restating our commitment to the people on the front line, the police.

    "The key thing is that we empower them to stop criminality."

    Asked about her views on capital punishment - after she previously made comments in support of it - Ms Patel said: "I have never said I'm an active supporter of it and [what I said] is constantly taken out of context."

    In 2011, Ms Patel spoke about the death penalty on the BBC's Question Time, where she said: "I do actually think when we have a criminal justice system that continuously fails in this country and where we have seen murderers, rapists and people who have committed the most abhorrent crimes in society, go into prison and then are released from prison to go out into the community to then re-offend and do the types of crime they have committed again and again.

    "I think that's appalling. And actually on that basis alone I would actually support the reintroduction of capital punishment to serve as a deterrent."

    Ms Patel was elected as MP for Witham in 2010.

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    1. From LSE in 2011:

      "The always contentious issue of the death penalty has re-emerged recently. Paul Staines(who writes the Guido Fawkes blog) has launched a campaign, which is backed by The Sun, to use the Government’s new e-petition scheme to initiate a Parliamentary debate on the reintroduction of capital punishment for the murderers of children and police officers. The campaign is supported by the Conservative MPs Philip Davies, Priti Patel and Andrew Turner."
      _________________________________________________

      In 2015 on Sky:

      Priti Patel's exchanges on the death penalty in full

      Presenter: One thing that came up yesterday is both you and Michael Gove have both advocated bringing back the death penalty in the past. Is that something you want to do now?

      Priti Patel: I've been asked about this previously on a number of occassions. I made a comment that it would only be appropriate when we have the most horrendous and heinous crimes. It is not something that is relevent to today's political debate or discourse at all.

      I am very much focused in my job as employment minister supporting what we do when it comes to growing our economy and getting more people back into work.

      Presenter: It is appropriate to ask do you still believe it.

      Priti Patel: I've told you already, exactly when that comment was made a long time ago...

      Presenter: It wasn't that long ago, it was on Question Time.

      Priti Patel: I'll say it again it was made a long time ago and it is not relevant to today's debate.

      Presenter: But do you still believe it?

      Priti Patel: I said it back then, when I was asked a question. It is not relevant to today's political debate and the subject I am here to discuss with you.

      Presenter: But why are you not willing to say whether you believe something?

      Priti Patel: Because I am here to talk about employment today.
      __________________________________________________

      And this from Sept 2016 (Total POlitics):

      "Five years ago Priti Patel was a strong supporter of the death penalty, arguing on TV that it would “act as a deterrent”. Even if innocent people were killed... Back in 2011, Patel clearly supported the death penalty on Question Time – while also acknowledging that innocent people had been killed.

      She insisted: “I do think that when we have a criminal justice system that continuously fails in the country and where we have seen murderers and rapists … reoffend and do those crimes again and again I think that’s appalling.

      "On that basis alone I would support the reintroduction of capital punishment to serve as a deterrent.”

      But during a grilling by MPs today the new international development secretary insisted she no longer held the highly controversial view.

      Patel was being quizzed by the Commons international development committee about her approach to the new job, in which she is responsible for allocation £12billion of taxpayers’ cash to foreign countries – including some which still execute criminals.

      After repeated attempts to clarify whether she still backed capital punishment, Patel finally gave a straight answer.

      “The answer is no, I have made that very clear,” she insisted, arguing she had raised human rights issues - including the use of the death penalty - abroad.

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