council estates.........

[Linford]

So what we are really saying is that unless the people living in these places take some form of ownership (and pride), they are unsuitable dwellings for them..

 

[Linford]

It's funny to see the differences in social housing, from the inner city Crescents in Hulme to the garden city of Wythenshaw. Both suffered from very similar problems despite the concepts so completely different. It is people that were the issue.

Imagine the scrum to slag me off if I intimated that people living in council estates might not be very nice people....

 

[Sara_H]

The controversy over Park Hill flats continues to rage.

It was a squalid concrete jungle where anti-social behaviour and petty crime were rife, making the lives of many of the residents a misery.

To my eye, despite the millions sent on regeneration it remains an ugly concrete jungle, except now its got coloured plastic squares stuck on the front of it.

It's not a council estate any longer the properties are available for purchase. Nicely located for the station and city centre, if you're into that kind of thing.

 

[marinyork]

I could argue differently but, in the case of the concrete Corbusian imitations, which should never have been built in London and Sheffield, it's a fair point!

Park Hill [Sheffield], Trellick Tower, Quarry Hill [Leeds], and to some extent Byker Wall all suffered from the same problems... in that tenants don't have any sense of ownership [not in the financial sense but from pride in their responsibility for, care of, and upkeep of a place]... similar 'experiments' when given over to the private ownership are incredibly popular and well maintained... look at the converted section of Park Hill now.... shows what can happen when people care for where they live. This isn't a comment on council tenants but concern about personal space, the peer pressure of teenage gangs, the threat of violence and the loss of neighbourhood communities where people are threatened by loneliness and separation.

Park Hill simply didn't keep up with modern life.

Although I've spoken to quite a few Park Hill residents that loved it in the early days, one of the issues was that the original south street houses although slums weren't the worst there has ever been when they were cleared. The relationship between previous slums seems to have defined quite a few other builds.

The bottom of Park Hill always had potential, the spaces in the middle that were mostly deserted and cars parked in the car parks adjoining it (let alone the location). The shops that used to be in the bottom (which very few people seem to have wondered about the space). The strange juxtaposition of time as well - the ancient woodland sat next to the concealed river sheaf and triple modernity of vision of different things of inner ring road, railway and (later) tram and next to all this was the futuristic possibility of Park Hill. The mad wide decks were quite typical of Park Hill - instead of a sense of community these wide public spaces overlooking even more public spaces (in the centre that were never used) were isolating and you could imagine a robotic cleaner coming to get residents like in the doctor who story Paradise Towers. Either that or loan sharks one often saw knocking on peoples' doors or gangs and dealers.

 

[Booyaa]

Imagine the scrum to slag me off if I intimated that people living in council estates might not be very nice people....

I was talking about two areas in isolation, and those areas, despite being very different, had the same problems. So blaming it on the estate/architecture etc makes no sense.

I'm not sure of your agenda or why you seem to have a chip on your shoulder but please leave me out of your pathetic point scoring.

 

[Pro Tour Punditry]

[QUOTE 2772242, member: 9609"]
As opposed to the run down housing schemes where no body would dare be seen helping the police due to the treat of violence from the minority.[/quote]
That is very wrong, and indicative of ignorance, and prejudice.

In all my years working in a number of organisations I have never seen such a sense of "community" and wanting to work together to make things better for everyone as I did when I worked with people who lived in housing estates - including them working with the Police.

 

[Pro Tour Punditry]

[QUOTE 2773176, member: 9609"]So you know run down housing schemes suffering from vast amounts of anti social behaviour where it is the norm for those suffering to contact the police and point the finger. Curious, what organisations have you worked with - church groups ?[/quote]

Police. Social Work. Youth Groups.

 

[PK99]

It's not a council estate any longer the properties are available for purchase. Nicely located for the station and city centre, if you're into that kind of thing.

Next door to Clapham junction is the Falcons Estate http://falconsestate.com/ Ex council, now all private. Great gated community. Mix of 2 *16 story tower blocks and a number of conventional brick built low rise blocks.

BUT, the flats in the two towers are un mortgageable* because of the concrete build. The Halifax (IIRC) used to lend until recently but no longer. Prices are £300k plus for 2 bed flat. Cash only buyers mainly on the buy to let market.

*Even with 50% deposit

 

[Archie_tect]

Some of the sink estates around Tyneside are beyond the Police's control. I had a site within Meadowell where the security was run by the local gangs... It cost the contractors a lot of money but we never had a single problem... The Police were never needed... I think it's called protection money- you may have heard if it.

 

[Pale Rider]

Some of the sink estates around Tyneside are beyond the Police's control. I had a site within Meadowell where the security was run by the local gangs... It cost the contractors a lot of money but we never had a single problem... The Police we're never needed... I think it's called protection money- you may have heard if it.

Much money was spent on Meadowell after the riots of the 80s. but the place still has a weird, and at times threatening, atmosphere.

I think I may have been past the private estate of which Arch speaks.

How anyone could consider buying a house in that location is beyond me.

 

[AndyRM]

Cruddas Park in the west end of the city is another less striking relic of that age, turning albeit impoverished and run down communities, that lived side by side and back to back into more isolated enclaves of impoverished individuals piled on top of one another. All with the Smith/Poulson corruption backdrop to the regeneration politics up there.

You're living in the past brother, it's been expensively renamed Riverside Dene so it's all better and fixed and nice now. There's definitely no more junkies and hookers knocking about.

I lived there for two years when I attended Newcastle College. In their wisdom, the school had student accommodation located in The Pines. Bunch of kids living next to rehoused prisoners and other villains. Put hairs on my chest that did.