I'm sorry
DotCommunist the following isn't aimed at you but I'm afraid that article makes me very grumpy.
Built to rehouse servicemen coming back from the war and their families, prefabs were luxury. They had clever designs, all mod cons and the same layout: two bedrooms, a hallway, a living room, a bathroom, interior toilets, constant hot water, and a fitted kitchen—with a fridge, a luxury that only 2 percent of British households had at the time.
There are two sides to the pre-fab story. They weren't constructed by magic social democratic elves but by a range of capitalist businesses, including some traditional house builders, but also a lot which had little or no previous experience. They piled in because there were subsidies on offer and they piled out again when these were withdrawn. There were a lot of different designs, using new and untested techniques and materials, some of which turned out to be unfit for purpose. In some cases the fact that they were intended as 'temporary' had it's effect on standards of construction. And as a consequence while some pre-fabs like those mentioned in the article were well constructed many others were not.
One of my best friends at school lived in a pre-fab at Debden. I can recall the draught from the metal windows in his bedroom, although "looking on the positive side" I imagine this helped reduce the condensation caused by the stand alone heater. What I don't think his family was aware off was the fact that this was one of the designs incorporating a very great deal of asbestos. Something which proved fatal for some of the builders who constructed them, for
some of the occupants and for
some of the workers who eventually demolished them. Other designs while less hazardous (if you discount the long term effects of damp) suffered failures of the concrete and steel elements.
The extent of the problems became highlighted when Right to Buy was introduced. Only three years later the government were obliged to introduce the Housing Defects Act 1984 to compensate the 30,000 odd home owners who discovered they had purchased defective dwellings. As part of this legislation a couple of dozen specific pre-fab designs were 'designated'. "Looking on the positive side" this preserved some of the communities living in these designs from the corrosive effects of Right to Buy since mortgage lenders promptly blacklisted them. Less attention, needless to say, was focussed on the impact of these defects on the tenants still living in homes which had them. Asbestos in particular remained one of social housings dirty secrets.
At the end of the '80s I was working alongside a guy living in one of Tower Hamlets remaining prefabs. He'd been one of the leaders of the parks department strikers during the 'winter of discontent' and was well up for a fight. But I don't recall that they had to drag him kicking and screaming out of his pre-fab. In fact I think the word he used may have been shithole.
So like I say there were two sides to the pre-fab story. But what really pisses me off about that article is the fucking tone of it.
Prefabs were a national success: residents immediately loved them and strong communities grew out of this successful social housing scheme. (...) these “palaces for the people,”
Pass the fucking sick bag. I imagine if some still functioning slave labour camp was discovered in a forgotten part of Europe there'd be some middle class cunt selling us a narrative of "architectural heritage" and "community spirit".
While we're remembering the post-war "world we have lost" and the communities that have vanished we might remember that they also included communities struggling against bad social housing, against management regimes fully the equal in cuntishness of the private sector and for something that was a fuck sight better than they got.
Grrrr. Lurdan stamps off to take it out on some vegetables.
