Post-war social housing
A key example of the role of the council is the landscape and environment within which modernist estates exist. The environment has always been a key part of the success of modernist housing, 22 and while some may blame the architect for the condition of the buildings, in south London the responsibility for the environment’s condition usually belongs to the council. Victoria Pinoncely (2016), a research officer at the Royal Town Planning Institute, states that ‘ the local environment plays a role in causing and deepening poverty ’ , implying that outcomes for which the architect is often held culpable are actually a result of council negligence. However, in most cases, the council is not ultimately responsible for the amount of money directed to estate maintenance, instead this comes from and is decided by central government (Gadsby, 2020). In the immediate post-war period, governments dedicated a substantial amount of money towards social housing in order to rebuild the depleted housing stocks. However, as public opinion turned away frommodernism and dissatisfaction grew with existing modernist housing stock, policy makers from both major parties sought new ways to supply Britain’ s housing demands.
Fig. 8: Tenure trends in London (GLA, 2017)
Right to Buy
Almost 40 years after its first conception, the cracks within Britain’s social housing system began to show. Modernism had fallen out of fashion as western society became enamoured with consumerism. By the 1970s, the new modernist social housing had lost its aspirational appeal. The quality of the private housing stock had improved along with an overall wealth increasewhich resulted in an increase in owner-occupation (see figure 8). During the 1970s, the rate of increase for the proportion of owner- occupied homes was greater than it had been in the decades previous. The 1974 Labour government
22 For instance, in the Alton Estate, where the Georgian landscape has been preserved. Le Corbusier advocated for the importance of the environment to the standard of living.
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