By 1960 we had a social housing provision which, whilst always being slightly behind the curve of demand, was functioning well and helping thousands of families to achieve a good standard of housing. At this point in my story I can well imagine young families desperate for somewhere to live reading my account and asking “What went wrong?”
A good question and a current subject of hot debate. My version is that after 1960 the major thrust of economic policies swung from a progressive central control mode to favouring the 'Market'. This led to policies of deregulation of financial institutions and retrenchment by governments eager to shed responsibilities for what they saw as matters that were solely the responsibility of the individual. Remember 'Greed is Good' and the explosion in the financial markets with 'Big Bang'?
The core policy of social housing as a social good for all was subtly changed to a way of dealing with what were called 'problem families' and they were given precedence over better off applicants. Eventually, some say that this produced the 'Sink Estates', and council housing began to be seen as an extension of Welfare not as a general social good.
After Margaret Thatcher became Prime Minister in May 1979, the legislation to implement the Right to Buy council houses was passed in the Housing Act of 1980. This resulted in the loss to the general public of a third of the council housing stock and while lip service was paid to replacing these with new stock, this was underfunded and never filled the gap. Various new policies such as the creation of Housing Associations to take over council estates and run them as a semi-commercial service were partially successful but never kept up with demand.
So, over the last forty years the number of social housing units has fallen and at the same time private building has lagged behind demand resulting in higher commercial rents which further damaged the concept of affordable housing. Put bluntly, the provision of good rented housing by the state as a social good has ceased. The Coalition government in 2011 announced that they were going to release state owned land to stimulate new builds and introduced a requirement on builders of new estates to include a proportion of units to be let at social rents. This was never successful because of mismanagement of the contracts, land was sold at low prices without planning permission and no requirement to build homes. Things were made worse by recent decisions to alter the emphasis of social housing from building for rent to building for first time buyers.
So, the answer to the question 'What went wrong?” is that the laudable aims of the 1945 Labour government have been subverted by Right Wing ideology and 'Austerity' measures following the self inflicted wound of deregulation and the most deserving cases have been abandoned. A harsh judgement? Perhaps, and certainly simplistic, but at least you now know the history and you can make your own minds up!
13 Avon Drive on the Coates estate, a godsend for my parents in 1979. Those days have gone.