Squatters – Tanya Gold – Guardian
February 21st, 2012
I know that in the 1970s squatting was popular. I’ve got a book on my shelves entitled Alternative London which tells you how to get up to all manner of things to do with accommodation of dubious legality but those times are past. Owing to comprehensive redevelopment and “twilight areas” rows of perfectly good houses were being emptied by thoughtless councils intent on demolition and with new build council housing not keeping up the result was, perhaps, coupled with the lassez faire attitude of the times, inevitable.
Apprenticeships
February 10th, 2012
dgriz
Apprenticeship’s modern day definition is a way to get someone to take a job for far less money than the person they are replacing. Nothing to do with the merits of the scheme, merely for companies and institutions to get around minimum wages and top up the shareholders/ board directors profits and bonuses.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/feb/09/apprenticeship-schemes-fail-young
Rosebury Avenue – former Metropolitan Water Board HQ
February 1st, 2012
On my Lubetkin visit to the capital last year, across the road from LSE Rosebury Hall where I was staying, I noticed this magnificent building, origin unknown to me until serendipity played a hand while going through some old Look and Learn magazines from the 1960s I came across this article (large graphic) showing it to have been the headquarters of the Metropolitan Water Board.
Nurses face eviction from staff housing – Guardian
February 1st, 2012
UPDATE: 25/5/18 Royal Free sells Queen Mary House
UPDATE: 9/1/18 Now a report from the NEF No Homes for Nurses
UPDATE: 11/06/17 Better late than never. Pity they sold them off in the first place. Thank goodness the NHS still owns most of the land.
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2017/jun/10/nurses-homes-nhs-staff-shortfall
http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2012/jan/31/nurses-face-eviction-staff-housing
This makes me very angry, comment to Guardian below:-
1 February 2012 2:07PM
This is absolutely appalling news but sadly only too predictable. When the police section houses (behind police stations) started to go I seem to remember being told that the police preferred to live with their families (wives and children) and that demand for bachelor (of either gender) accommodation had fallen away.
200th article – World’s End Chelsea
September 20th, 2011
Tonight I’ve reached something of a milestone for the blog. They may not all be great writing, they may not all have good photographs or indeed any photographs. But in just over two years I have managed to churn out two hundred articles with thanks in order to the London Evening Standard for Plot to rid council estates of poor which started all this off on 9th July 2009.
Brief history of housing in C20th
August 18th, 2011
The history is pretty straightforward if depressing in that before the war large amounts of housing throughout the country were unfit for human habitation and had been built during the industrial revolution to the standards of the time which for working people were often what the employer could get away with.
The 1930s was seen as a time to start clearing the slums and large housing blocks such as Quarry Hill in Leeds and Gerard Gardens and others were built in Liverpool, it’s worth seeing the film Homes for Workers to see what was being done at that time.
After the war the Modernists had their chance to rebuild the housing of Britain and in addition to many houses with gardens large numbers of flats were built often on estates, with varying degrees of success, let’s not forget the new towns either.
Unfortunately the situation in the inner cities was less good. London had much new housing built but this fell short of that required leaving many people trapped in poor quality privately rented accommodation with the scandal of Rachmanism that marked the early 1960s.
With families being broken up by social services if they became homeless, the film Cathy Come Home by Ken Loach was a cry for help for those families so troubled and led, ten years on to a change in the law such that council homes were no longer allocated to those who could show good references and a record of employment, but rather to those most in need.
While a worthy aim the long term effect of this policy when combined with the inevitable effects of right to buy has been to create sink estates where in earlier decades lived a range of people of all backgrounds.
Which brings us back to Ferrier. From the podcast linked below we learn that former inmates of the asylums were housed in small numbers on Ferrier and there was of course the compounding effect of right to buy where those who could afford to bought and moved out, letting the property, often to recipients of benefits. Some who could not afford to but bought anyway, defaulted and had their homes repossessed thus losing their security of tenure and reverting to the bottom of the waiting list, and lastly those left behind who could not afford to buy even with the discount.
UPDATE: This gives a good account of public housing in the last century:-
Heygate Estate – Elephant & Castle
August 16th, 2011
Thought for the day – Regeneration is social cleansing
In my continuing quest for béton brut (raw concrete) I wandered along to what’s left of the Heygate to snatch a few shots.
Wooden cobbles
August 16th, 2011
“The streets of London were once paved with end grain cobbles and end grain flooring has been used widely in engineering and other industries because of its durability,”
Next to Braithwaite House are wooden cobbles, blocks of wood on end, as seen in butchers’ blocks, a small square of them within a cobbled lane to the left of Braithwaite House in Bunhill Row in the City of London. Fascinating.
UPDATE: – 30/3/12 – I’ve found some more. Walking up Pentonville Road towards the Angel, on the left just after the junction with Penton Street I walked behind a car waiting to pull out from the layby outside 98-100 Pentonville Road and there beneath gaps in the tarmac, are wooden cobbles. If I’ve got the address wrong then they are not far from there, check the adjacent lay bys outside buildings there in case I’ve got the number wrong.
I found several bare patches, and touched them to be sure. I’m surprised the tarmac sticks to them at all to be frank and it would be much nicer if it were to be removed and the ends varnished, what a lovely sight that would be.
Taylor Wimpey example of kitchen design
July 25th, 2011
I had to laugh. That’s what somebody typed into Google (in the title) before reaching my page on crap flats. I had no idea they were designed I thought they were the space left over when the requisite number of en-suite bedrooms and toilets had been put in along with the composite living/dining area. I cannot seriously imagine design ever coming into it.
Look through this blog and all the TW kitchens you’ll see here will be units stuck along a wall or around a corner or as an afterthought (mostly) without windows to look out of.
Thank you 109.149.4.xx for making my day.
Taylor Wimpey aren’t the only ones. Read my post on Kidbrooke Village – Phase One or Pepys Estate and what you find is that Berkeley Homes also regard it as acceptable not to include a separate kitchen in either their new developments or their redevelopments. They are not even pretending to approach open plan, they are just dumping a line of units along the wall in a room as an apology for a kitchen.
On passing through Sheffield
July 19th, 2011
This July (and September) came a chance to return to Sheffield, to see the changes and more importantly view the city as a whole rather than just as an appendage to its most iconic hilltop landmark. What follow are the photos and comments from that trip.
From bottom left the station roof then Sheaf Square fountain. At far left the Showroom and above it the Hubs. Above that the Butcher Works Arundel St (find chimney). In the centre The Howard and at top right the “cheese-grater” car park.
