Social housing on new build estates

[pangeapanda]

I’m absolutely not looking for a bun fight on council housing tenants, we’re classed as living in affordable housing (shared ownership).

We live on a new build estate, it’s a mix of outright owned/mortgaged, shared ownership & social housing. From what I understand, a certain percentage of new homes have to be allocated for affordable housing or council housing. I imagine they’re moving away from building entirely socially housed ‘council estates’ now?

Half of the estate is houses, a line of part owned properties then quite a few blocks of social housing apartments. I guess my question is, why do they segregate the council tenants from the home owners? I thought they’d be more likely to pepper them throughout the estate now to avoid pockets of antisocial behaviour.

There’s a clear divide between the estate and one side is noticeably less nice. At the same time, some of the houses sell for nearly 500k so people might be apprehensive, rightly or wrongly, about buying where there may be a lot of turnover or perceived antisocial behaviour.

Is there a reason they lump all the affordable housing together then? And should it be considered a good thing?

I used to work at a housing association.

The provision of social housing is usually part of getting planning permission for new estates. A housing association will buy or lease that parcel of land and pay the construction company to build the properties. It's often the less desirable so cheaper part of the overall plot. It's all planned out 2-3 years in advance - they don't just buy random houses on the site like a private buyer. The H.A. stays very involved throughout the process.

Fittings such as kitchens and bathrooms are often cheaper options than the for sale ones. On the other hand, sometimes h.a. specifications for the actual construction can be higher, room sizes, windows etc. they also pick up (or should) any construction issues as the properties will be surveyed a couple of times before completion, and then thoroughly snagged at the end. I heard tales of all sorts of shite construction or corner-cutting being found and the developer made to put it right, whereas private buyers probably wouldn't even notice. At one development, we found the windows weren't correct spec so they were replaced - the incorrect spec was left in the for sale ones. So in some ways better, in some ways worse. If I ever bought a new build I'd pay out for a good surveyor to go over it with a fine-tooth comb.

Sad to say, social,housing is too often associated with anti-social behaviour, dumping of rubbish etc. A dd bought an ex council house, next to one that was still SH. Perfectly nice houses, but next door were so often loudly yelling and swearing, leaving rubbish in their front garden for weeks on end, plus they had a big dog that they hardly ever bothered to walk, so it was always barking. I doubt that they were short of money, there was always a smart fairly new car outside.

I bought an ex council flat in a nice area, renovated it from a shithole. All fine, until a young woman neighbour with a baby (single SAHM) acquired a dog. She had seemed perfectly nice, but although there was loads of open green space virtually on the doorstep, so easy for dog walking, she just let it shit on the balcony. From my balcony I’d be looking at umpteen piles of shit, which she only cleared up about once in ten days. It was utterly disgusting. She didn’t appear to have any disabilities that would have prevented her from walking the dog - I’d seen her up and down and in and out very often.

Instead of original plans for the flat, I sold it, and would be very wary of buying near SH again.

I'd say it was a huge part of it. Who wants to live near criminals or people behaving in an antisocial way. Living in a low crime area is one of the very important factors that makes an area desirable. If estates are built which mix in SH with owned housing and crime rates increase then that has a negative effect on the whole area.

The social houses will be of a different standard and smaller than private homes. Also, People won’t want to pay ££££ to live next door to social housing.

Councils don’t directly build housing anymore, which is why you don’t really see the big traditional council estates like years ago. Most of it is contracted out to private developers, who only have to include a percentage of social housing as you described. There’s actually a builder near us who buys a separate bit of land altogether so the social housing is kept away from the private homes. As a PP said, I assume that’s to protect the value of the private properties.

I own my home as does my neighbour, we live opposite a row of SH properties and I have more issues with my neighbour's drug use than anything the SH tenants do.

That said a friend is in SH and the tenant below them is very unpleasant, they constantly smoke weed which stinks out my friend's home and have pretty much said they have to put up with it - HA aren't interested.

Not the point of the thread but just goes to show it's not about home-ownership - you get selfish idiots in all walks of life.

This must be one of the most unpleasant threads I have read on MN for a long time

Back in about 1990 I was delivering some leaflets on a 'Council' estate.

Now working as I then did in a housing office I can spot a council house a mile off.

Gardens were simple but well maintained, exterior in good order

The 'sold' properties however were a tat fest......

I think I had this conversation with a developer a few years back.
The social housing part is usualy as the to get planning, they have to agree to build a percentage of the houses or flats as social housing. But they do not have to be the same spec. So build quality and fittings will be lower spec than the private properties. They can have their own entrances or position on the estate. This is so that the developer can maximise the value of the private houses, as the neighbouring properties will be of higher value having nicer properties as neighbours.

Funnily we had people doing some work on the roof of our apartment block recently and they were obsessed that they were social housing
comments about it being nice for council housing, asking about rent etc
I said I owned and got “oh did you buy off the council?”
me and my neighbour were WTF by the time they left as they’re all mortgaged and have been since new

I could also ironically be higher spec in some areas (e.g. fire regs). My friend and her kid moved into a new build block of flats that had needed 18 months of work by the council to bring them to the minimum level for social housing after being handed over by the developers. The private tenants in the other identical block just moved straight in.

That’s not necessarily true. Depending on where you live there are laws for SH room sizes and they’re larger than most new builds- or other properties generally.

This is why people like ex council houses, they have a lot of relative space. it cause problems for developers because it means they can squeeze less property in. But they are often bigger rooms than relative private homes

of course you can’t compare that to a 4 bed detached exec home (although you might find the box room of it isn’t big enough to be a Social housing bedroom 😄)

Why is it assumed that all social housing tenants will be antisocial? Is it because if you have a mortgage you’re likely to be without fault? Most people in SH work. I’ve never understood how the mere mention of council housing evokes images of people fighting in the streets. It’s an outdated view

Why? People are just talking about the realities of how their lives can sometimes be affected living in mixed housing areas.
There's no point in pretending everyone everywhere is lovely. Statistically more antisocial behaviour is carried out by SH tenants.

Can you cite your statistics please?

Sorry to hear that :( yes, there are some decent people but it’s a minority (speaking for personal experience on tha estate). We are also rural ish, on commuter belt to London so a lot of professionals and young families with children around here. Thankfully we were able to sell and move proper rural…

We had moments of weakness when we thought to move back to the new build - at the end of the day it’s all nice, new and shiny, more energy efficient and you don’t need to anything apart of decorating some walls…. But it’s hard to forget what we „run away” from. I think the only way to move back to the new build would be if there is only few houses build, not mega estate.

It’s the same old misguided, dated argument every time by people who managed to borrow a few quid, lots of whom struggle to repay it so to elevate themselves they pick on SH tenants, you know, so they can pat themselves on the back at the cleverness of their huge debt

The estate being built near us is not like that at all. They are all very aesthetically pleasing and indistinguishable from one another. I think it’s very much down to the builders
and to planners to ensure that the permission details materials that will affect the quality of the built environment. I’ll be honest, I’m naturally anxious about building work on greenfield sites. It hurts my soul in ways I can’t quite explain to see virgin soil and high quality farmland being concreted over. Given this natural reaction to building work, I expected not to like the new housing development on the edge of our village, so I am pleasantly surprised to find that it is being really very nicely done.

You answered your own question when you said "one side is noticeably not nice".

All new social housing where I am comes with a conduct agreement - tenants can be evicted if there’s a lot of anti-social behaviour. I live next to one SH estate and a relative is in newly built SH, both estates are lovely, maturing well and no behaviour issues in either.

The arsehole neighbour of mine who thinks having a DJ led karaoke party every Saturday for weeks on end is reasonable is another matter entirely.

I replied to your original question and not to the thread. We are in a rural area, so everyone is local and everyone knows each other, including the social housing tenants. They are no different from anyone else.

Yep.

My best friend lives on our local SH estate, gets on really well with their immediate neighbours, but has had an awful time with others on the estate. There is frequent vandalism, theft and rubbish dumping, and they do not always feel safe in their own home which is especially awful with their young child to consider. They’ve applied to move but have not had any luck. Obviously there’s no guarantee another estate will be any better.

There are large swathes of new builds mushrooming in our town and a couple of years ago, DH and I went to view one of the properties with a view to potentially moving. The house itself was stunning(out of our price range—the ones we could have afforded were either sold or yet to be built), but upon walking outside into the lovely garden it became apparent that a block of flats backed onto it, overlooking the garden. I had no idea if they were SH or privately owned, but couldn’t imagine shelling out for that huge house with so many people overlooking the garden. Completely hypothetical as there’s no way we could’ve afforded it, but it wasn’t a good ad for the estate and badly planned. We decided to stay put with our lovely neighbours we currently have.

I have been in a shared ownership new build since the beginning of last year, lovely building, all neighbours are also shared ownership. They had been working on ‘phase 2’ since we moved in and it is full of social housing - neighbours in surrounding buildings who outright own their properties were up in arms about this and honestly we were confused and thinking surely it can’t be that bad - and if I’m honest I did question if they were just looking down on them due to them not owning their properties.

Now, it has only been two weeks since the works completed/people moved in to the social housing block and oh my goodness, I understand why the commotion about it. Sofas dumped in the private car park (laying over spaces), individuals now using the disabled parking bays with no badges, screaming and shouting through the night we can hear from across the car park - it seems like just overnight our area has turned into a war zone. I have nothing against individuals who live in social housing, I grew up in social housing myself, and you do still have lovely families who treat their home/area with respect and love, however I do believe no matter where you go there is always at least 1 family that seem to ruin it for everybody which is an absolute shame.

I have had the same bad experiences as others on the thread.

That said, I do think that most people will only notice the bad tenants. The majority of those in social housing likely go by unnoticed as they aren’t anti-social.