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irishurbanplanner · 3 years ago

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Part 3 of 4

As discussed in the introduction, this next section deals specifically with an article from The Guardian newspaper entitled ‘Council homes: the rise, the collapse and the fall’, by Holly Bentley in 2008, covering a period of 140 years. It summarises both the rise and decline of the State provided Council home in the U.K. As referred to earlier, the stories of the Council house in the UK and in Ireland are starkly similar. Ireland benefited from having a much larger, neighbouring country testing out new ideas around mass property production, giving The Irish State a template to emulate. If that template is subject to flawed execution, however, then it can be doomed to fail, often in spectacular fashion, a prime example being the Ballymun flats development in Dublin.

The author will provide substantial information from Irish planning history to complement the story of development in the UK. This will be drawn from Deputy Eoin Ó Broin’s book entitled ‘Home’, which provides a time frame of policy changes to date.

The following is from the article mentioned previously:

1890: “The Housing of the Working Classes Act encouraged local authorities to improve housing. Three years after the act, the London county council built the first council estate, Boundary Street, on the border of Shoreditch and Bethnal Green in east London”, as was detailed earlier. This was again a fantastic build and a credit to LCC.

(H. Bentley, 2008)

Ireland was subject to considerable influence from the United Kingdom at this time and suffered its own housing problems.

The following is taken from Deputy Eoin Ó Broin’s (Sinn Fein) book entitled ‘Home’.

Its story is punctuated with relevant dates and time frames.

“The formation of the Land League in 1879 marks the beginning of the social movement for modern housing in Ireland”

(E Ó Broin, pg. 14)

Michael Davitt’s “The Fall of Feudalism in Ireland” marked the beginning of the end of Feudalism in Ireland. The influence of the farmer class was formidable and the development of our housing system throughout the 20th century was largely shaped by their specific requirements.

1919: “The Housing and Town Planning Act provided councils with subsidies to build houses in areas where there was high demand. During the interwar push for "homes fit for heroes", public housing grew from less than 1% to roughly 10% of the national total”.

(H. Bentley, 2008)

This was a significant event, increasing the overall number of Council housing from 1% to 10%. The Act, however, was only concerned with housing the working classes, people of skilled means or those who provided valued physical labour. The wording of The Act both in the UK and in Ireland is virtually identical. The drive to house the Working classes was commensurate with their importance to the State; The uneducated, impoverished or those with little or no skilled labour were left to their own devices.

To illustrate this point, there follows the UK and Irish housing legislation that was drafted and published in 1919, replete with consideration for the Working classes.

(The UK Housing Act, 1919)

https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1919/35/enacted

And the Irish Housing Act;

The first line of the Irish Housing Act is as follows;

“An Act to amend the enactments relating to the Housing of the *Working Classes* and the acquisition of Small Dwellings in Ireland”.

(Irish Housing Act, 1919)

1921: “Work began on the Becontree estate in Barking and Dagenham, east London, the largest council housing estate in the world. It was built by the London county council to reward the families of soldiers who had served in the first world war”.

(H. Bentley, 2008)

This was a noble act; Rewarding these soldiers undoubtedly had public support and was politically shrewd. More importantly, these men had suffered immeasurably. They were now trained killers, veterans, and at the same time, victims. What’s referred to as “The Great War” ultimately served no purpose. Fears of “Revolution” were prevalent at the time and the struggle between Capitalism and Communism was in its infancy compared to the Cold War period of the 60s.

According to Dr Marvyn Miller, in a BBC production film entitled ‘The Great Estate – The Rise and Fall of the Council House’, the ‘Godfather of Social Housing’ was one Raymond Unwin. Unwin was a Socialist and he wanted to build “the homes for heroes”. Some residents at the time compared their homes to Heaven, saying as they walked in, “this is heaven without the gates on” (M. Collins, 2011).

During this period in Dublin, Ireland the ‘Housing Act’ of 1919 was introduced. Local Authorities submitted 42,000 homes to be built and delivered by 1922 (E Ó Broin,). Marino, a residential area, was the first of these being planned in what was then a suburb of Dublin, approximately 30 minutes’ walk from the city centre. These homes in Marino were heavily influenced by the ‘garden city movement’. I submit that Marino is one of our finest public housing projects and it has endured. The author resided here for 3 years and found it an exceedingly pleasant area in which to live. The estate was built on the site of a planned garden which explains the symmetrical layout. This layout combined aspects of community integration with those of privacy. Today, few of these houses are owned by the State. They were sold for a reduced price to the inhabitants between the 1970s and 2000s. The area is now largely middle class (MC). This was the prevailing strategy, to lift people out of poverty or lower MC, into MC or indeed Upper MC.

See two images below of Marino, both at the time of construction and from Google Maps today in 2021.

(Google images, 1929)

(Google Maps, 2021)

Meanwhile, in the UK:

1930: “A housing act was introduced by Ramsay MacDonald's Labour government with the aim of clearing slums and building new homes for their inhabitants”.

(H. Bentley, 2008)

In Ireland, the first Government of the State was formed which was led by one Eamon De Valera, the formidable political leader of Fianna Fáil and instigator of the Irish Civil War, who later became President of Ireland. According to Deputy Ó Broin’s book entitled ‘Home’:

“The legislation still prioritised development by private individuals and Public Utility Societies and as with its predecessors was more focused on rural labourers then their urban counterparts. Over the following eight years 17,525 cottages were provided for rural labourers, despite only 10,000 being required. Meanwhile less than half of the 19,000 urban dwellings required in Dublin were built”.

(E Ó Broin, pg. 28)

Meanwhile, in the UK:

1942: “The Beveridge Report led to the foundation of the welfare state and stimulated mass housing programmes”.

(H. Bentley, 2008)

It’s important to mention that the UK’s first Planning and Development Act was the first anywhere in the developed World: 3 Acts, ‘The New Towns Act of 1946’, the ‘Town and Country Planning Act 1947’ and the ‘National Parks and Access to the Countryside Act 1949’, which were in line with the broader programme of increased government intervention’ (N. Taylor, 1998). In this post War period, Socialism was to the political forefront. However, as Nigel Taylor points out in his book Urban Planning Theory:

“Radical though this programme was at the time, in the pure sense of the term this programme was not ‘socialist’. In its acceptance of a mixed economy, in which an enlarged public sector co-existed with free market capitalism – in which, in effect, the state ‘managed’ capitalism but where private enterprise remained the central driving force in the economy (including land development) – the post-war government’s stance is more correctly characterised as ‘social democratic’ rather than ‘socialist’

(N. Taylor, 1998 pg. 21)

In Ireland, during this period, there was a housing crisis and the first test of the new State. According to Ó Broin:

“The Dublin Housing Inquire published in 1943 estimated that an additional 43,000 dwellings were needed to replace the tenements in Dublin, Cork, Limerick and Waterford”.

However, unlike post-War Britain, the ambition here was limited in its scope.

“Indeed, as need continued to increase output continued to decline, reaching an all-time low in 1946 when just 563 houses were built”.

(E Ó Broin, pg. 32)

We turn now to the year 1951 in the UK:

1951: “The Conservatives came to power on a pledge to build 300,000 new houses a year, and a flurry of public housing projects followed. Successive governments turned increasingly to high-rise blocks of flats to resolve the demands of post-war housing”.

(H. Bentley, 2008)

In what is referred to as the Golden Age of SH, between the 1950s and 70s, this time marks the beginning of the State’s policy (particularly in the UK) to look seriously at the idea of “bulk buildings” or mass-produced builds, largely untested and experimental. The experiment would be carried out on the very people who needed the homes. The government’s strategy was simple, seeking to build approximately 300,000 homes quickly and efficiently. Governments of the day typically endured for an average of 5 years and the State’s undertaking to deliver on promises that might outlast the life span of a particular Government proved difficult to achieve. In a film entitled “Inquiry: The Great British Housing Disaster 1984”, Adam Curtis investigates “The Great British Housing Disaster”.

In the 60s, it’s observed that successive Governments had worthy intentions; Radical and unconventional designs and builds were commonplace! (With varying degrees of success).

In a film by A. Curtis and according to one Kenneth Campbell, Chief Housing Architect for LCC 1959-74, County Councils were shown the “new way” of building: Prefabricated homes were to be manufactured in factories, not on building sites, which was considered normal practice. Speaking from personal experience though, builders build! This author spent several years as a Stone Mason on building sites throughout County Meath, Ireland. General practice involves putting materials in place and securing them as one goes. The term ‘safe as houses’ is a well-known term and for obvious reasons; Houses don’t tend to fall down! However, according to Kenneth Campbell: “Governments put pressure on the County Councils to take factory builds on and were told to build as high as possible to house as many as possible” (A. Curtis, 1984)

The author would remind the reader that this time frame is still in the ‘so called’ Golden Age for Social Housing in the UK (50s and 60s).

So, with that said, if we take a close look at the much-famed Park Hill Estate in Sheffield England, built between 1958 and 1961 by architects Ivor Smith and Jack Lynn in the much-criticised style of ‘brutalism’, with the influence of Le Corbusier and the Smithsons, we see an example that could have been replicated all over the UK. Thankfully today, after a narrow escape from a demolition order in 1998, the build has been awarded a grade 2 listing with the ‘National Heritage List for England’, which protects it from demolition.

Park Hill Estate was a brilliantly designed build. To help demonstrate this, the following photographs are taken from the website of ‘Urban Splash’, an award-winning regeneration company.

(Figure 10, Urban Splash, 2021)

(Figure 11, Urban Splash, 2021)

(Figure 12, Urban Splash, 2021)

(Figure 13, Urban Splash, 2021)

(Figure 14, Urban Splash, 2021)

(Figure 15, Urban Splash, 2021)

An undoubtedly impressive suite of features but the homes have proven difficult to sell. This is partly because of damage done to the perception and reputation of tower blocks, which will become increasingly evident as I write. Certainly, by the 1990s, the 985 flats had become known as a ‘failed experiment’. According to Paul Dobraszczyk of the Guardian, the Park Hill Estate “like so many others, it was equated by many with ugliness, social decay, drug use and family breakdown” (P. Dobraszczyk, 2015). The Academy of Urbanism lambasted the idea of ‘Streets in the Sky’ in a piece entitled ‘Streets in the Sky – The Urban Idiot’, as an example of an idiotic way to imagine the future:

“As anyone who – like the idiot – has ever lived on a deck access estate knows, they suffer from fundamental flaws that means they can never work as streets. Typically, they were carved into the building so the environment consists of blank front doors on one side, a concrete ceiling and a precipitous drop on the other. There were no eyes on the street and no way of avoiding trouble coming in the other direction until you got to the next stairwell or lift”.

“They also failed the basic test of a street in that they didn’t go anywhere and generally ended in a dead end many stories off the ground. As a result, the only people who shared the walkways with their residents were the drug dealers and muggers who preyed on them”.

(The Urban Idiot, 2017)

In the film mentioned previously ‘The Great Estate – The Rise and Fall of the Council House’ where Michael Collins interviews several residents who lived there since the 60s and still live there, the following is noted:

“It were marvellous” (beaming from ear to ear as she tried reminiscing the time in her mind’s eye). It were wonderment, ye know… there were parks on its doorstep, all the shops were together in one place…from a hardware shop to a butcher’s shop, wallpaper shop, there were iron muggers; there were a fish and chip shop”.

“Pubs all together if you know what I mean...(winks) I mean my Dad, could go and get drunk on the inside without getting wet on the outside, cause he could go into every one, round the landing, down the lift, straight in ye know. He would never move off here”.

(Resident of Park Hill Estate, M. Collins, 2011)

“Architects from all over the world came to marvel at Park Hills modern facilities. They also found homes that boasted state of the arts utilities”. (M. Collins, 2011)

In a further short conversation M. Collins speaks to one Grenville Squires, who was the Caretaker of Park Hill Estate from 1981 to 2010, but also a maintenance man who was responsible for looking after the indoor workings of the build:

M. Collins: “So, Grenville, where have you brought me eh”? Grenville: “Well, now we’re in the docks, which in modern day language… it’s a service tunnel. To walk into a kitchen, it would just look like a normal seen and then ounce you looked into the bowl, there were two plugs, there were a small one and a big one. All you food preparations, your plate scrapings, everything, it all went in there. You filled it up with water and it use to suck everything out and down to the boiler house. Must of your other rubbish, your bagged up rubbish once a week, there was roundabout 15 to 20 ton and that went down to the incinerator, which heated water that’s pumped round Park Hill as heating”.

M Collins: “So what do you think this place gave to people they didn’t have before they moved to Park Hill?

Grenville: “Well to sum it up. (As he recalls an old lady) Here was an old lady that appeared on a film some years ago, she said:

“We taught we’d died and gone to heaven””.

(M. Collins, 2011)

So, in summary, and to conclude this segment on the Park Hill Estate and as referred to in The Academy of Urbanism, the rationale behind the design appears haphazard at best, what with an article decrying aspects of the design accompanied by an award-winning video depicting the design in its entirety as a prime example of ideal architectural design. It’s a build that still lives with the shame of the past, unfortunately; Take the resident quoted previously and then consider the photographs. Safety concerns and the problems associated with anti-social behaviour are well founded in builds and neighbourhoods with low occupancy. Security is of paramount importance and was often difficult to implement in these older builds. Newer builds benefit immeasurably from advances in security technology.

I refer to Ireland again briefly, between the years 1951 and 1968

Social policies and political initiatives in this country were heavily influenced by those of the British system. Housing was no different. Although Ireland was to experience its own golden age for SH, building continued apace. The following figures are taken from Deputy Ó Broins book ‘Home’:

“In the 16 years from April 1948, about 137,000 dwellings were built with state aid, of which 74,000 were provided by private enterprise and 63,000 by local authorities. Capital expenditure in the period 1948 to 1964 on housing was estimated at £225m. Of which State aid and local authorities contributed £192m”

Ireland observed what the British had done to solve housing issues and as discussed earlier, a ‘copy and paste’ policy was adopted. However, Dublin City Council (DCC) copied the wrong model, and it should have looked no further than builds like Park Hill Estate or Marino for inspiration. Unfortunately like so many of these builds, they had no heating systems, no milk man or bread man, no amenities whatsoever in fact, nowhere for the children to play and develop mentally or indeed socially! The Ballymun flats, situated on the outskirts of Dublin, very close to Glasnevin I might add, were a disaster from the beginning. In this writer’s opinion the build and particular maintenance of said build was an utter disgrace and is a stain on DCC and its policies to this very day. The internet provides ample evidence in this regard. Below is a link to a very well written piece:

https://planetgeogblog.wordpress.com/2020/04/30/ballymun-dublins-dream-and-disaster/

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irishurbanplanner · 3 years ago

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Part 2

The Unfortionate Yet Intended Perception of Social Housing

If we take ourselves back to the heart of the industrial age to the 19th century of the United Kingdom, we can find the origins of the story of SH. In fact at the end of the 18th century cities all across the UK (although not in Ireland to the same degree with the exception of Belfast) were expanding at a rate never seen before. People all across the UK and Ireland began flocking to these expanding cities to avail of the new work and labour opportunities.

“The Industrial Revolution changed material production, wealth, labor patterns and population distribution. Although many rural areas remained farming communities during this time, the lives of people in cities changed drastically.

The growth of cities led to horrible living conditions. The wealthy fared far better than the industrial workers because they could afford to live in the suburbs on the outskirts of the city.”

(P. Chappine, 2014)

The question now was what would become of these grand, often very well kept Victorian and Georgian styled buildings. The answer of course was to rent them to the less well off, or at the time the working classes, indeed the very people who made the industrial revolution possible. The politicians and elites of the time knew this very well of course and so wanted to help these worker bees survive and prosper, giving them a roof over their heads was a good start. People and families who were often crammed into single rooms had nowhere else to go and became trapped in these buildings. The profitable margins for this new landlord class grew and grew and in large part played a role in turning these cramped buildings into living nightmares for these young and often very large families. Government reports at the time indicated that as many as 6 people slept to one bed.

“The sanitary conditions in early industrial cities were filthy as well. Since the municipal governments did not concern themselves with cleanliness at the time, the cities did not have proper waste disposal systems, and people threw trash and sewage directly into the streets. The burning coal of the industrial factories coated cities in a layer of grime and polluted the air, and water supplies were polluted by waste”.

(P. Chappine, 2014)

With the scene now set. The place is Shoreditch London, 5th of March 1900, an area in the East End of London which forms the southern part of the London Borough of Hackney, see maps below that will help geo-graphically navigate one self.

(Figure 1, Google Maps, United Kingdom, London, 2021)

(Figure 2, Google Maps, London, Shoreditch, 2021)

(Figure 3, Google Maps, Shoreditch, Arnold Circus, 2021)

This would become the scene of the first SH project anywhere in the world, built by the *ounce* esteemed London County Council (LCC). According to the Guardian and its Social Housing Archive, titled ‘Shoreditch slums give way to country’s first social housing’, this new and ambitious project was built on top of;

“what was for many years a huge slum in Bethnal Green, on the site of that which three centuries ago was the garden of the nunnery of St. John the Baptist, Holywell, is now a little town in itself” with beautiful “red brick (Victorian style) buildings, large well-ventilated rooms, workshops, wash-house and baths, a recreation hall, and outside a terraced garden with a central band stand”.

(The Guardian Archive Social Housing, 2016)

The images below show how it looked at various points in history, demonstrating it lasted this length of time to be almost in perfect condition today;

(Figure 4, 1895, London Metropolitan Archives)

“The campaign to raze the Old Nichol Rookery slum was spearheaded by Rev Osborne Jay. Looking south east in 1895, all that remained of the former slum was St Philip's Church. Jews, and later the Bengali community, brought greater diversity to an area which was already a cultural melting pot”.

(James Fitzgerald, 2018)

(Figure 5, Google Image from 2016)

(Figure 6, 1903, London Metropolitan Archives)

The estate is nearing completion by 1903, with only the bandstand still to be added. A 2009 Museum of London excavation proved that the central mound was raised from the rubble and left-behind items of the former slums.

(James Fitzgerald, 2018)

(Figure 7, Rodney Burton, Hurley House from Arnold Circus 2006)

(Figure 8, 1897, London Metropolitan Archives)

“The new tenements housed some 6,000 residents at their peak, which exceeded the number displaced by the construction. Tellingly though, it's said that only 11 of the former slum-dwellers could afford the new rents”.

(James Fitzgerald, 2018)

(Figure 9, 1907, London Metropolitan Archives)

“The estate's provision of green open space was considered radical in a city with longstanding spatial challenges consequent on the Industrial Revolution”.

(James Fitzgerald, 2018)

At the time LCC was a newly established public body and wanted to hit the ground running with a lasting effect on the ever expanding city of London. It is worth mentioning the chairman of LCC, one Alderman Arthur Arnold who was behind the idea, along with its designer Owen Fleming. Just to highlight what was mentioned previously, because this build literally solved a lot the problems of the time. The design was meant to help these people, with good well taught out design, large well-ventilated rooms, workshops, wash-house and baths, a recreation hall, and outside a terraced garden with a central band stand as was mentioned previously. This really was a fantastic piece of work by LCC, delivering above and beyond people’s expectations, not just then, but more importantly today. This kind of quality build simply does not happen anymore.

The next section will work with some quotes from the time period to give an idea of the thinking at the time by the elites. One Prince of Wales Edward VII (Albert Edward) gave a speech on the opening day of the unveiling at Shoreditch;

“It is to be feared that the very Acts designed to combat existing evils may themselves give rise to results which were not foreseen. But one thing is certain - the difficulties have to be surmounted. I am satisfied not only that the public conscience is awakened on the subject, but that the public demands, and will demand, vigorous action in cleansing the slums which disgrace our civilisation and the erection of good and wholesome dwellings such as those around us, and in meeting the difficulties of providing house room for the working classes at *reasonable rates* by easy and cheap carriage to not distant districts where rents are reasonable.” – (Cheers from attending crowed)

(Edward VII, 5th of March 1900)

Edward VII speaks very well as one would expect of a man of his class and background. He very elegantly talks about results and actions having not been foreseen…about the public conscience awakening, I mean It’s almost laughable if it wasn’t so serious a situation in today’s climate (2021). What would he have to say if he saw the decline in building standards some 120+ years after his speech, with all the advancements in technology, would he believe it? He talks about civilisation being disgraced…I mean I would agree, but again, how would he define a typical Council Estate nowadays compared to this fantastic development he speaks of in Shorditch? Nowadays of course, they don’t create communities like they use too, not like say Marino in Dublin 9 (where I lived for 3 years), or say the Dublin inner city communities. Specifically in Dublin 1 and the work achieved by the late and great Tony Gregory.

He speaks of *Reasonable rates* etc., what would he have to say about today’s rent prices. For example, here in Dublin Ireland, with the average monthly rent costing 2000+euro. This is more than half the annual amount earned per average household, being at 40,000 according to Jobs.ie. And just to add some meat to this bone, I’m an aspiring Spatial Planner, with an Honours Degree. I can expect to be paid anywhere from 24,000 to around 30,000 annually, even if we take the lower end, all that income would be going onto rent, which of course, is an extreme example but still. Recently in the Irish Times, Mark Paul published a piece titled ‘Dublin fourth most expensive city in euro zone for expatriates, survey finds’, in it, Dublin was ranked 4th most expensive EU city to live in. According to pension specialist Mercer, they bill Dublin as the 39th most expensive place on the planet to live, which is up seven spots from last year on the list of more than 200.

The last quote from Edward VII Prince of Wales is the following;

“It is most satisfactory that the London County Council, so soon after its constitution, should have cordially co-operated with the vestries of Bethnal Green and Shoreditch in rooting out a nest of vice and disease and replacing the miserable courts and alleys and insanitary and filthy houses with excellent buildings designed to provide comfortable homes for the working people.” - (Cheers from attending crowed)

(Prince of Wales Edward VII 5th of March 1900)

This is the bit that I find most telling. The Prince speaks about doing a good job in your County Council area. He mentions the newly established LCC and how this clearly use to be a subject of pride, to look after people in a sense. Of course, Shoreditch London is a place of pride, 120+ years after being built. But the LCC bodies reputation is in tatters, destroyed utterly by the Grenfell Tower disaster in the summer of 2017, and might I add, rightly so!

Simple few questions to consider?

How many Council Estates built in the last 50 years will still be standing in another 100 years and in good nick?

How many will still be sought after by the wealthiest in our societies?

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irishurbanplanner · 3 years ago

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Part 1 of 4

The Unfortunate Yet Intended Perception of Social Housing

Abstract:

In this author’s adult life experience, he has seen Ireland grow out of the dull and grey 80s and into what was termed ‘The Celtic Tiger’, a time of prosperous development and growth in the early 90s and into the mid-2000s. According to The Central Statistics Office, Ireland’s building industry in 2005 estimated that the value of output in the construction industry was almost €32 billion which is 80% higher than the output figure of €17.6 billion in 2000. (Construction And Housing In Ireland - CSO - Central Statistics Office) The author was 18 at the time and, like many of his friends, was told (although not by his parents, it must be said), ‘leave school now and get work, you’d be mad not to’. There seemed to be a consensus at the time that encouraged youngsters to seek employment in the building industry, especially those like me who didn’t have the best learning experience in secondary school. For example, the author got a job as a site labourer straight out of school and was taking home a cool 550 in cash after tax on Friday, a no brainer! Ireland’s building industry was at its zenith in 2006:

CSO (2006): “approximately 1 in 8 people (12.6%) were employed in construction and by 2006 the construction industry employed in excess of 250,000 people” (CSO, 2006). Unfortunately, shortly after this in 2007 the world credit crisis hit and many young people’s lives were put on hold or in some cases devastated. New careers were now necessary, people had to tear up their lifelong plans and make new ones! Upskilling now seemed to be a sensible approach. Many people went back to education as mature students, however many more, including our highly skilled construction workers i.e., tradesmen of all sectors of the building industry, migrated to places like Australia, Canada and the UK.

Side Note: The author was always interested in the subject of Social Housing, partly due to his background working as a Stone Mason for several years and partly due to the predicament the country currently finds itself in. Having searched around for quite some time for a title, it wasn’t until he saw the film by one Adam Curtis entitled “Inquiry: The Great British Housing Disaster of 1984” that he realised that he and everybody else had been duped, conned, mislead by a carefully constructed narrative. After all, by the late 70s, both the Governments in the UK and in Ireland were looking for ways to avoid building housing, the peak of building having occurred in the 50s and 60s. This post seeks to highlight how we were all very carefully navigated towards the negative perceptions, never the good examples, of which there were many! Instead, the narrative depicts dangerous, drug infested anti-social havens, from the late 70s onwards. Yet the findings of this work point towards another story that could just as easily have been told.

Introduction:

This is the story of Social Housing (SH) with a focus on both the Irish and British planning systems. It focuses on how the two States dealt with the demands for housing since the beginning of the 20th Century. How did their ideological views on housing evolve, who needs housing or who indeed, as it was put, “deserves” housing? This post is the first of four parts, which will detail the rise and fall of State provided Social Housing, to the present day.

The author used many sources throughout this work, however the main source used was a newspaper article, used simply for the time frame and major policy implementation mentioned throughout. For the purposes of these posts, it served as a start and end point. For the purposes of telling the Irish planning story, the author focused on a book entitled ‘Home’, written by an Irish politician, Deputy Eoin Ó Broin, of Sinn Féin. Deputy Ó Broin presents statistics and studies policies that were implemented throughout the tenure of the Free State and that of the Republic of Ireland.

It’s worth mentioning that statistics on the Homeless are not kept in one department but are recorded by both Non-Governmental Organisations (NGOs) and several Governmental Departments. The author has used Focus Ireland to obtain statistics to serve as an insight into the problem in Ireland:

“There were 8132 people homeless in the week of the 19th – 25th of July 2021 across Ireland. This figure includes adults and children. The number of homeless families has increased by 232% since July 2014 when the monthly figures started being published. Almost one third of people in emergency accommodation are children. However, this number does not include ‘hidden homelessness’ which refers to people who are living in squats or ‘sofa surfing’ with friends. Furthermore, women and children staying in domestic violence refuges are not included in these homeless emergency accommodation counts. The national figure also does not include people who are sleeping rough.”

(About Homelessness - Focus Ireland, (09/21))

As detailed above, a 232% increase, yet the numbers don’t include rough sleepers who are the most profoundly affected by this housing crisis. These people are mostly Irish citizens, born here and domicile in Ireland. These Irish citizens are stripped of their citizens’ rights after becoming homeless, they can’t avail of regular State assistance. They can’t vote, for the same reason, and they can’t access Social Welfare payments. They are left to fend for themselves on the streets of urban Ireland. Luckily, those with children can avail of emergency State provided accommodation. However, not all are provided with this service; Single persons are often forgotten, resulting in depression and lack of self-worth. Why is the problem so bad in this country? Convention dictates that one should take international trends and examples into account, that this is a global problem, that Ireland is no different to any other developed country. Undeniably, this housing issue is a global problem, people in poverty are often left to fend for themselves. However, the author believes that Ireland’s problem is best investigated with reference to, and comparison to, a similar phenomenon in the United Kingdom

The author will focus on the original intentions of the State to deliver housing to those who “deserved” it most (UK Housing Act 1919). It will touch on building initiatives (with specific focus on the UK), and it will highlight the high standard that was expected and the outcome of this effect on the citizens that benefited from them. As it turns out, proper building had very welcome consequences indeed (depending on the building in question and its quality), often lifting its inhabitants out of poverty or lower middle class and into middle class or upper middle class, “lifting tide lifts all boats theory”, being the prevailing idea.

Given the history of the Republic of Ireland and being positioned next to what had been a pre-eminent colonial power, we naturally adopted a lot of our neighbour’s governing systems. For example, we adopted a common law legal system. We have a written constitution which enables us to have a parliamentary democracy, modelled on the British political structure. We also adopted a version of the British planning system, which this section will briefly focus on for the purposes of providing background information on Social Housing in the UK. Notwithstanding that, the following paragraph was taken from ‘A comparison of planning systems in Ireland and Northern Ireland’, which helps detail the differences.

“Both NI and Ireland operate under a two-tier planning system with planning responsibilities split between central government and local councils/planning authorities. Both planning systems are ‘planned’ meaning that planning decisions are made based on national and local development plans and policies. These work to provide a balance between development and environmental protection, while ensuring the needs and well-being of local communities are provided for. Both jurisdictions allow for certain types of permitted (known as ‘exempt’ in Ireland) development that do not require a planning application, this includes change of use within the same ‘use classes’ as defined in the respective pieces of legislation. Unauthorised development or breaches of planning consent are dealt with by each jurisdiction under their system of enforcement, operated by the local council/planning authorities. While the basic structures of the two systems are similar, there are differences in the detail and in how each system works. For example, both operate a slightly different planning policy hierarchy, with more tiers in Ireland than in NI (i.e the UK). Nationally significant projects are decided differently between the two jurisdictions, and the appeal process in Ireland allows for third party appeals (via An Bórd Pleanála), while NI does not”

(Northern Ireland Assembly)

Further information can be obtained by accessing https://data.oireachtas.ie which is the government of Ireland’s website or from the Northern Ireland Assembly @ https://www.assemblyresearchmatters.org

Finally, this post wants to look at how Social Housing has become such a divisive subject over the last few decades when it so clearly was the answer to much of our societal woes, often referred to in Planning circles as “wicked problems”. Some have called for a referendum on the subject of a fundamental right to a home. The current Government has even promised this right: A home, a roof over one’s head, somewhere to rest, to enjoy family, to socialise with friends and a place that should be considered age appropriate with safety for both children and the wider community, of paramount importance. This author believes that now every citizen should have the right to say, ‘this is my home, it has a fixed address, I can vote, I can receive mail, and I can come and go as I please!’.

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