Demolishing housing estates

Rubbish, roses. In the meantime, by cancelling the Labour party policy, Cameron has caused great distress to those people involved. However, they lived mainly in the north, so did not matter.

Because of Cameron's cancelling the agreement in Hull, my sister and everyone else in her street had to lose half the value of their houses and were not able to sell it or have it improved as Cameron now wants to do.
The money was there. Much of it came from the EU, that is, our own money back to improve the housing stock. When Cameron stopped the scheme, the EU money was withdrawn.

You cannot really think that was a good idea.

You are really being taken in if you think there is more money available now for Cameron's good idea. If there is more money available, why are benefits being withdrawn? If there is more money available, why are there more people going to foodbanks?
Most people who go to foodbanks also live on the so-called sink estates.

Have you looked at the figures? They are laughable. 100 estates are to have £140 million spent on them. It will not even pay for the demolition.

I wonder how many people were let down by John Prescott's Pathfinder scheme?

I'm off this thread now as I don't want to encourage any more 'hyena' jibes, but you really do seem to have a very blinkered view, durhamjen. Everything is seen through a left-wing lens - no room for tolerance of anyone's views but your own.

Excuse me, Ana, what's a hyena jibe?

You are obviously not blinkered, very moderate, and really concerned for those who are still going to lose their homes.

Of course, there is a way to build as many houses as we can without knocking down whole estates, by funding it with PQE.
However, they would not do that as it's a socialist idea and they do not like those.
Oh, hang on....

www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-15563227

Thousands were let down by Grant Shapps scrapping the pathfinder scheme.

www.theguardian.com/politics/2016/jan/13/revealed-how-jeremy-corbyn-has-reshaped-the-labour-party

I'm not the only one who likes Corbyn.

Putting aside the question of where people are housed while such a scheme is carried out, I think it's highly likely given recent Government policy that a large proportion of the new properties would be built as so-called "affordable housing" - which, in case some people haven't realized this yet, is very far from affordable to those on modest incomes, whether buying or renting.

As for why some of us are so sceptical about Cameron's great plan, that's easy to explain and nothing to do with being left wing or not (and despite what you might think, I'm not): we've seen what's happened over the last five and a half years.

janeainsworth I was in Newcastle about 6 or 7 years ago and was shocked the way opulently expensive and lavish flats and shops to match lay cheek by jowl with estates where the deprivation was palpable. These were not, necessarily high rise. The worst I saw was an estate of modern low rise houses; houses boarded, litter and neglect everywhere.

durhamjen makesa good point about the quality of much of the council hosing that was built. The majority of social housing developments are not failing. For every sink estate - and not everyone has high rise flats there are 100s that provide good housing for those on lower incomes.

Improving housing on these problem estates would be nice, but not necessary. A think tank, the Policy Exchange has done two reports on the problems on these estates and successful strategies that can help reform them. Neither of them involves the demolition and rebuilding of the housing.
www.policyexchange.org.uk/publications/category/item/the-estate-we-re-in-lessons-from-the-front-line
www.policyexchange.org.uk/media-centre/blogs/category/item/britain-s-sink-estates-can-and-must-be-turned-around

It's not just the quality of the housing that makes for 'sink estates' it's also the type of people who live there. Many of the old 'slums' that were demolished in, for example, Liverpool were thriving and supportive communities in many ways. When people were rehoused in areas such as Tower Hill or Cantrell Farm these communities were broken up and never recovered.

The worst estates are ruled by gangs and/or drug dealers. Young children are drawn into this culture despite all their parents efforts to stop it. Too many one-parent families simply dumped there without support...and so on.
I've seen it first hand and tried to work with some of these parents. They are fighting a losing battle.

So I agree with Cameron, in this instance, that not all the families can be guaranteed to return to the same estate, and, if my exierience is anything to go by, some families would welcome the chance of a new start for their children's sake. Other families, many residents would be glad to see the back off.

We are speaking if the people in these estates just as the refugees in Calais are spoken of .

That's nice because I'm always hearing about how we should be helping the refugees more

But the people we are speaking of are not refugees and the response from the government to the refugees was if we take them they will lower our standard of living , so no, it's not nice , it a disgrace that we speak of the poor in this country the same as was said when workhouses were springing up.

The residents of these estates are no different to the rest of us,

Some of them are, and some of them aren't!

Regeneration, or making council estates nicer places to live is a good thing no matter who suggested it.Now, hopefully these plans will be done well, and
Of course there is always a possibility that it won't work, but the plans have to be given a chance, at the moment all I hear on here apart from a few lone voices is a depressing ' leave things as they are'. Sad really.

Sorry Annie, but a lot of the residents on these estates are very different to most of us.

Monica Perhaps the estate you saw with boarded up houses and lots of litter was due for refurbishment/regeneration/demolition?

I was wondering exactly the same janeainsworth a lot has changed in and around Newcastle in the last 6-7 years M0nica.

Are they Petra? How are they very different ?

Indeed. The most important bit of his speech is at the end:
"So regeneration will work best in areas where land values are high, because new private homes, built attractively and at a higher density, will fund the regeneration of the rest of the estate." he said

So, councils/housing associations will have to sell the prime land these estates are on to private developers who will build high density housing for sale. Then the councils/housing associations will have to use the money from the sale of the land to build a new social housing estate. Where? Next door to the nice private estate? Some way will be found to make this impossible of course. So, miles from anywhere? From schools the children attend? Far from work places social tenant work at?
Also, where are the tenants going to be re housed while the re development is going on? It isn't like we have hundreds of empty houses waiting! And what about owners who bought their house from the "right to buy"? Are they going to be compensated?
Like all Cameron pronouncements, sound good until you actually look into it

It only takes a few antisocial people to make a whole estate look rundown and uncared-for. I have lived in a few council estates and seen this happen. Most of our neighbours were lovely people, but the occasional bad apple spoiled the whole place.

There is a snowball effect - the new houses are lovely and neat and the first tenants are proud of them and keep them nice.

Then one "problem family" move in, with an old car that they park in the front garden to gradually disintegrate, no interest in the garden, a dog (s) that does its business where and when it wants to, unruly children, friends who park in considerately and bring in drink which causes noise and fights.

A few neighbours who can afford to put down a deposit on a house somewhere else and move, so their houses ars empty and available. The new tenants may or may not keep it to the same standard, but if they are near the anti-social one they may lose the will to try, and let their house look bad too. Soon that street becomes known as a place to avoid if possible.

Don't demonise housing estates - there are good ones and bad ones, and good and bad tenants. and there are good and bad houses too. The bad ones need to be replaced.

My DS and DDiL bought an ex council house on a large estate. It was all they could/can afford. After 9 years they have their house like a little palace. Fortunately in their street most of the houses have now been bought through the right to buy scheme and with the exception of one or two most houses on the estate are quite well looked after. I agree with Elegran that it often only takes one or two "problem" families to bring down a nice area and no matter where they were put they would be the same.

Mind you all this aside if I won the lottery tomorrow I would still like to buy my family somewhere nicer and bigger to live.

What to do with the bad tenants is a big problem. I don't mean people who are physically unable to keep a garden in order or have hit a bad patch and are too depressed to care, I mean those few who really don't care about their surroundings or their neighbours and just want to eat, drink, fight, break up the furniture and throw their rubbish into the front garden.

If they are evicted, their children will suffer, and the family will be added to the long list of homeless. If they are moved to a down-graded area where there are others like them, to stew in their own juice, that makes a ghetto. If you could fine them for damaging the house and leaving the place ina state that encourages vermin (and for generally being a damn nuisance to everyone else) they would claim that they can't pay. Sending round someone to teach them how to keep the place reasonable and consider their neighbours is not likely to work.

I don't think you can do anything about those people Elegran. It happens in other roads as well as housing estates. The council just has to eventually go in and clear up, and bill the tenants. Whether they ever pay up is another matter. I think it's something that has to be accepted. I don't think it would bring the rest of the estate down.

I think the idea is a good one. Give people somewhere a bit pleasant to live.

Janeainsworth only some of the houses were boarded up, their were groups of youngsters hanging around and many houses were quite obviously occupied.

roses are red, I feel you are selectively reading the posts on this thread. No-one is saying do nothing, we are saying do not do this, it will not work. It has not worked in the past. If you follow the two links I posted in my previous post you will come on reports making constructive suggestions and offering examples of estates that have seen considerable improved, not through demolition and rebuilding, but by working with local people. These articles point up better, quicker and cheaper ways of improving sink estates which are proven to work.

Any residential area will have problem families and problem households. Watch Neighbours from Hell and other such tv programmes. If there are problem families then it is up to the local authority to deal with them. Families can be given clean up orders, anti noise orders, ASBOS and at the end of the line, if all else fails, evicted.

David Cameron has already announced, and funded, a programme aimed at working intensively with dysfunctional families, surely this also has a part to play.

Any residential area will have problem families and problem households. Watch Neighbours from Hell and other such tv programmes. If there are problem families then it is up to the local authority to deal with them. Families can be given clean up orders, anti noise orders, ASBOS and at the end of the line, if all else fails, evicted

My parents lived next door to one such problem families. They suffered miserably for many years. The family were given final warnings, final final warnings, final final final warnings etc. Every member of the family had (and probably still has) an ASBOS. They were threatened with eviction more times than I can remember. It never happened though. Eventually after years of suffering my parents moved house. We later learned (from the police) that 2 members of the family were being protected as they had given evidence against someone to save their own skin (in other words they were equally as guilty). The local authority were powerless to deal with them. My poor parents almost had nervous breakdowns.

Dysfunctional doesn't even begin to cover it.

"if all else fails, evicted" and what happens to a family who have been evicted? They become homeless . . . .