The Today programme interview went off tolerably. In preparing for it I came across the remarkable fact that even Will Hutton, the left-wing writer for the Guardian, has decided that council housing has been a disaster. His article is here.

He mentions a book called Estates, Britain's own special ghettos by Lynsey Hanley, who has written for The Observer. He says her book is "passionate and engaging" and it certainly sounds worth having.

On re-reading the chapter on council housing in my own book, I was particularly struck by the fact that in the sixty years up to 1911, 21 million more people came to live in cities in Britain. Without any planning or state housing of substantial size, this massive increase in the city population - a tripling - was successfully catered for.

There were no massive building projects, just thousands of builders building houses and flats to meet demand. Planning and building controls were, of course, much less of an obstacle and added expense than now. What is most impressive of all is that the density of housing - the number of people per dwelling - actually improved during this time. It fell from 5.46 to 5.05. (This from A Social History of Housing by John Burnett).

Another fact worth remembering is that after the second world war, the Attlee government was desperately keen to get new housing built. Council housing was thought to be the answer. Some four out of five buildings were built by councils. Private sector building was restricted to allow all the effort to go into council house building. And the result? Fewer houses were built than in the years after the first world war.

During the debate on the Today programme today, Alan Walter, for the lobby group Defend Council Housing, argued that huge amounts of money are being taken out of council housing. Rents and sales, he suggested, were bringing in much more money than the costs of maintaining existing council housing and new building.

I don't have figures available on this but I am deeply sceptical. The pace of selling council housing has slowed. The costs of renewing council estates that have gone wrong remain enormous. One of the cuttings I cam across stated that Birmingham has faced a bill of £1billion to renovate its council housing. In 2000, it said it intended to destroy 300 tower blocks. The North Peckham Estate - where Damilola Taylor was killed - has been renovated at vast expense. The rents in council accomodation tend to be well below market prices.

There are many ways of counting the numbers on such things. I very much doubt that, properly looked at, council housing has been anything but a financial as well as a social disaster.

One other thing: I notice, on the Defend Council Housing website, a statement by one of its supporters that goes like this:

"Our UNISON branch wish to fight. A lot of our members not only work in housing but we also live in council houses, so we're in double jeopardy."

It is signed, "Jane Moore, Cardiff UNISON".

This is an open, unabashed admission that part of the reason she wants council housing to continue is that she works in the business of council housing. One can't help admiring the honesty, but she is admitting that the 'great fight', in her case, is partly based on her own self-interest. Sight of this made me wonder where the funding for Defend Council Housing comes from. Is any of it from unions whose members work in council housing?

Correction: On buying the book by Lynsey Hanley, I find that the subtitle is "An intimate history" rather than "Britain's own special ghettos".

Posted by James Bartholomew • Indexed in Housing

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