Introduction

This final chapter summarises findings from the study of 100 years on 20 estates, and draws out the implications for social housing as a whole. It discusses opportunities and missed opportunities to learn from the experiences in the estates and others like them, and describes what can be learnt for new development today.

What we have learnt from 100 years on 20 estates

This book started with the impassioned pleas of a community worker who worked at E13 (1933/1,100/fl/L) in the 1940s (Chapter 1). He referred to E13 as: ‘one of the “problem estates” created in the 1930s … [which] stands today as a monumental example of how new communities must not be planned’ (White 1946:12).

Whatever measures were used, others assessing E13 in the 1940s might have agreed with him that it was a ‘problem estate’ and could provide many lessons about what not to do in developing new communities. White argued that new estates should be built on a smaller scale. Access by four-or five-storey stairs should be avoided. New features such as hot water boilers were expensive and did not always work well. Concentrating the poorest households in particular areas should be avoided because the community would be less likely to find natural leaders. Estates should be in places where suitable employment was accessible. Additional services for the new population such as school places, playgrounds and shops should be ready in time for their arrival. Extra social services or voluntary sector support should be in place to help people settle in and to develop community organisations, and to help avoid negative feelings or prejudice from people and services in the local area (White 1946).

These lessons were not learnt by local authorities, architects, planners and service providers, or at least not applied in practice in every case.

Part II showed how early problems similar to those experienced at E13 went on to be experienced at many of the 17 estates built after it, right up until the third-generation estates almost thirty years later in the early 1970s. The desire to meet housing need resulted in many large estates, where space was available (including E3, E7, E8, E12, E16, E17, E18, E19 and E20).