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Happy 100th Birthday, Council Housing.

marty21

marty21

One on one? You're crazy.
Happy 100th anniversary Addison Act - celebrating 100 years of council housing

100 years of Council Housing - surely something to celebrate. For a while in the 80s/90s it looked like it might disappear with Stock Transfers/ALMOS, a ban on council house building , but somehow it managed to survive, and is now building again.

I lived in Council Housing as a kid in the 70s/80s, I didn't think anything of it at the time as I was a kid - but my parents were grateful (at least my mum was:D) at the reasonable rent and repairs being done (eventually:hmm:)

We got cakes today as well #easilybought
 
I lived on two council estates from the age of 1 to 23 with my mum in London in the 70s, 80s and 90s and, despite them both being a bit rough, had a very happy upbringing. Loved it in fact.

Something I've only recently started to appreciate about growing up on estates was being surrounded by scored of mates and running wild from a very young age. All day long.

Maybe its generational thing but my partner's two kids (aged 12 and 14) dont have any local mates near us in Brighton. Never have friends knocking for them and dont go out much at all. I feel sorry for them when I think what I was getting up to at their age.

So yes.....definitely something to celebrate! Happy birthday.
 
Can't remember where I learnt it (possibly while doing the Institute of Housing course) but apparently one of the lesser known reasons for the Addison Act was that the government didn't want major, ahem, social unrest. Having seen what had just happened in Russia.
 
Worked in social housing for most of my life. Three different councils (Tory, Labour and Lib Dem) and a couple of different housing associations. Fully intend to do it until I retire.

Really hard work at times - it's driven me properly mad at least once - but it's a genuinely good thing to be involved in, for me. I'm starting a new job in a month's time where I'll be involved in buying the land and building the houses. I've never done this bit before and I'm really looking forward to it.
 
Proper Tidy said:
Have missed most of it, but just turned on telly to that George Clark being unashamedly pro council housing and social spending, fair play to him
Click to expand...

For some reason I thought that was on Friday! It looks really good. Will watch on catch-up.
 
Lived for a fairly brief period in council housing (tower blocks) - probably about three years in all - in my early twenties. Loved the views from up there, even if a neighbour in one block was a proper wrong 'un. My gran lived in council housing for decades - probably fifty years until she died.

They should build loads more and ban BTL.
 
Voley said:
Worked in social housing for most of my life. Three different councils (Tory, Labour and Lib Dem) and a couple of different housing associations. Fully intend to do it until I retire.

Really hard work at times - it's driven me properly mad at least once - but it's a genuinely good thing to be involved in, for me. I'm starting a new job in a month's time where I'll be involved in buying the land and building the houses. I've never done this bit before and I'm really looking forward to it.
Click to expand...
We have had a similar working life :D I've worked for Councils, Housing Associations, Housing Co-ops,ALMOs, and TMOs , pretty much the whole of Social Housing varieties. I've had some experience of new build , and I'm getting a bit more now that councils have started to build again.
 
Lambeth Council are also celebrating it. Most bizarre. The history of having a New Labour Council for years in Lambeth is that they haven't been that keen on Council Housing.

Cllr Paul Gadsby, Lambeth council’s Cabinet member for Housing, said: “The act created council housing in its present form. Council housing remains as important today as it was 100-years-ago which is why this is such an important milestone.
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Love Lambeth

Somewhat surprised at Cllr Gadsby saying this.

What has kept them on their toes is that they still need the votes of Council tenants in some areas.

The estates regeneration programme is deeply unpopular. Is likely to see the housing transferred to a SPV- Homes for Lambeth.

I didn't feel when New Labour government were in power that they liked Council Housing.

Also , except for a few officers, Lambeth officers don't come across to me as committed to Council Housing.

So its a 100th birthday but will Council housing last for the next generation?
 
When I was lucky enough to be offered a very small and "hard-to-let"** Southwark Council flat in the place of my Urban/online name, I thought I'd died and gone to heaven. Lived there 1991 to very late 2008. I was pretty poor when I moved in, but better off when I emigrated to Wales.

**Single bedroom. 12th floor of a 60's tower block. But built to decent space standards back in 1967. Much in over-demand now!!

Tories (and imitators ;) :( :hmm: ) who hate decent, or any, public housing are scum. :mad:
All those who need it should have it.

If it's relevant, both sets of my grandparents were council tenants, and until they died. My mother's parents (grandad : railway signalman = "respectable") moved into their Derby house in the early 1920s. My grandmother died in 1984 still there. Security of decent housing was the best thing ever for so many back in the twenties, and before/after. Such security still would be amazing now. Were it not for resource starved councils, i.e. Tories :mad:
 
Does housing association love count? When we apply for council housing up here we go on the list for both. Currently in HA hoose, grew up in a council flat, then a bungalow, then a house which was then bought sadly. Grannie lived in one til she died and my aunties are still in them.
 
mod said:
I lived on two council estates from the age of 1 to 23 with my mum in London in the 70s, 80s and 90s and, despite them both being a bit rough, had a very happy upbringing. Loved it in fact.

Something I've only recently started to appreciate about growing up on estates was being surrounded by scored of mates and running wild from a very young age. All day long.

Maybe its generational thing but my partner's two kids (aged 12 and 14) dont have any local mates near us in Brighton. Never have friends knocking for them and dont go out much at all. I feel sorry for them when I think what I was getting up to at their age.

So yes.....definitely something to celebrate! Happy birthday.
Click to expand...
Yes I have very happy memories of the block of flats we were in, it was like one big shared house almost. they would have parties in one house and then we would wake up and go knocking around the doors asking “is mum here?” (God imagine what people
would think now!) I remember it getting far less social as we went into the 90’s, and then people started buying them and it all went to shit.
 
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I've been on the housing list in Edinburgh since 2009. Still in a private let, currently paying £1140 a month rent. No sign of any escape from that anytime soon. We're housed, as far as the council is concerned.
 
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