The Origins of the Double Stigma of Large Post-War Council Estates in the UK: 1945 - 1978

Abstract

Inhabitants of large post-war council estates are subjected to a double layer of stigma: one attached to the tenure of council housing, and one attached to the specific council estate on which they live. The present thesis investigates the origins of this double stigma. Contrary to many studies focusing on the period after Margaret Thatcher’s Housing Act 1980 to account for the increasing marginalization and stigmatization of council housing and council estates, the present thesis finds that the origins of the stigma of both were well established by the late 1970s, the implication being that the increase in marginalization and stigmatization after 1980 followed patterns that were established before that time. The origins of the stigmatization of the tenure of council housing is found in a set of interlinking processes occurring since the early 1950s which had the accumulated effect of residualizing the sector, meaning that the sector increasingly became dominated by households on low incomes. The stigma of large post-war council estates derives from a multitude of factors that impacted negatively on the image of council estates. Some of these factors were single events, like the Ronan Point disaster and the Pruitt-Igoe implosions, while others were long-term structural and societal factors, such as the increasing rejection of the Modernist project of urban renewal and the shift in emphasis towards the conservation of existing inner-city neighbourhoods. However, the decisive factor in entrenching the low position held by the large post-war council estates in the urban hierarchy is found to be the negligence of central and local government to respond adequately to early signs of social breakdown on estates. The convergence of the two stigmas is then to be found in the so-called “era of mass housing” between the late 1950s and early 1970s, when a massive expansion of the housing programme coincided with a narrowing of the scope and role of public housing provision. The widespread disaffection with the workings of slum clearance and the dismissal of the style and form of Modernist mass housing schemes translated into a general rejection of the whole council housing programme. The residualisation of the council housing sector as a whole was mirrored in the increased concentration of vulnerable households on large post-war council estates.