Page 14 - BBC History - September 2017

History now / Backgrounder

A councillor and architects
discuss plans for the Moss
Heights development in
Glasgow, 1953. Proponents
The historians’ view… of high-rise flats believed
that they would provide
a safe, clean, modern
alternative to the old slums
Have high-rises ever

been the answer to

our housing woes?

In the wake of the Grenfell Tower disaster, we asked
two experts to o!er their perspectives on the impact
of multi-storey public housing on Britain’s social landscape
since the Second World War
Interviews by Chris Bowlby, a BBC journalist specialising in history

As an experiment authorities into adopting high-rise solutions. By the 1980s, local councils – and the
Many councils were reticent, but subsidy high-rises that they managed – found
in social from the state meant they were, in practice, themselves under huge financial pressure, as
given little choice. Tenants had even less rising crime and cuts in public spending
democracy, high-rises influence on the decision-making process. started to bite. Councils increasingly began
were a failure. There’s There is very little evidence that they wanted to outsource developments to housing action
to live in high-rise blocks of flats. trusts (similar to housing associations). This
very little evidence As an experiment in social democracy, was partly due to pressure from the Thatcher

that tenants wanted high-rises were a failure. They simply did government. But it was also because they
couldn’t afford to maintain a large stock of
not evolve as coherent communities. From
to live in them the 1950s, many affluent and skilled workers housing with rising problems.
left the old slum areas, either for new towns, Despite these body blows, over the last
PETER SHAPELY overspill estates or to buy their own homes couple of decades high-rise living has made
in working-class suburbs. This increased the something of a comeback. And that’s down
concentration of poor and displaced people, to two very different processes: culture and
ower blocks were originally aimed at a as well as immigrant families, in poorer cost. Contemporary urban lifestyles, with a
T wide range of social groups, primarily parts of urban areas, especially inner-city more positive cultural attitude to living in
from slum clearance programmes. They were developments. It was these social groups that the city, has transformed many people’s
meant to be not only a modern, clean and tended to be concentrated in the new flats. attitudes to the high-rise.
affordable alternative to the slums but also a Soon, local councils were starting to Meanwhile, refurbished apartment blocks
vehicle for developing social democracy. realise that high-rises were unpopular with have given residents the opportunity to live
In theory, elderly people would take the families and the elderly – and that, in some in affordable inner-city homes, offering
ground-floor flats, while children would cases, they were expensive to manage and views and facilities often out of reach of
benefit from open spaces and playgrounds, maintain. The Ronan Point tragedy of 1968 those who rent or buy from the private
taking them off streets that were becoming – when four people were killed after a sector. As the cost of housing has rocketed –
increasingly busy with traffic. Inside, modern London block of flats partially collapsed – and supply dwindled – such ‘luxuries’ have
facilities offered the type of provision that gave the authorities a further wake-up call. become an ever more precious commodity.
residents could only dream of in the old, But the expense of building from scratch
overcrowded and unhealthy slums. and the parlous state of the nation’s finance
This was a top-down process. Local meant that, when the government did
authorities had to apply quick and affordable take action – in the Housing Acts of 1969
solutions to the chronic problems presented and 1974 – it proposed wide-ranging
Dr Peter Shapely is a
by the slums. Labour and Conservative improvement programmes rather than reader and head of school
governments increasingly pushed local new developments. at Bangor University

14 BBC History Magazine