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've lived on two housing estates, as a private tenant, both were absolutely fine. No rubbish strewn everywhere, no xl bullies, and very quiet. Do you all live in large cities or something?

If you think those addicted to alcohol and drugs and cause a nuisance in society should be housed above families in need then there’s something wrong.

there are UK families living in BnBs all over the country.

I’ll run the points based system with you and we will soon have your bf sorted out - in fact all
millionaires who take drugs, drink too much can be housed together. Where do we house the drug dealers who supply both the rich and the poor? Should they have their own street?

Eh? Where did I say that?

A lot of those in b&bs will be under educated, have addictions, have very little support and will just want a safe space to live quietly and peacefully. And when they finally get it 🙏🏼 they are up against horrible attitudes from neighbours who think they are superior.

Ask me how I know?!

On a project I worked on they might for instance be 12 houses being built at once, 4 for private sale, 8 belonging to the council with 4 of those for affordable rent and 4 for social housing. It made sense to group them together as the specs could well be different. Often the private buyers could choose kitchens and flooring etc while the social housing need to be the same supplies as the rest of their stock for the maintenance team.
Also just easier to administrate so if the council are selling 4 as shared equity then it's easier if they are all in the same bit for viewings, snagging checks, meter readings etc that need completing.

Who cares? It just means SH on SH crimes doesn’t impact the owner occupiers who are so terrified of them after all

What about when a family in need has issues with drug and alcohol use?

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

The developers want to recoup money as fast as possible when they start building - so building the social, affordable and council properties first means that they know they will get this money back asap - in the"first phase"

When they are planning on building, they start in one area and build, they don't sort the entire site and start building in pockets all around the estate as that wouldn't work from a building perspective - so all the first phase will likely be majority council and a few others thrown in

We have had 5 estates ( each with around 1000-2000 homes ) built in a 4 mile area and a new secondary school was supposed to be built - this is part of the plans with the developers (developers have to pay) and they were a year late finishing the build, as its not profitable so gets left

One of the estates is supposed to have a bus route built in after phase 1 but the developers are now crying about the cost and have put it back, along with putting back the community hall and school for one of the estates

councils are under pressure to get building quoters, but will say no to certain plans put forward, then the developers went to the last gov who over ruled and said yes. Local councils don't have the funds to fight this in court and the developers have solicitors on hand to put up the fight so its a lost cause (or lost council tax money)

Sadly, that's not how it works at all. Have you ever wondered why Labour is building so few new houses?

We live in a new build estate and it’s quite mixed. Lots of the houses are well cared for you would never tell which ones were sh or private. Sadly the flats are another issue. They are all social housing and are only three/four years old but they are in a terrible state now with smashed windows and constant smell of weed. This makes me feel so sad as I grew up in social housing and feel this gives a poor view of anyone who is in sh, with everyone getting labelled the same. It’s a few rotten apples that make such a bad impression that it sticks.

I believe at least 30% of any development of more than 10 dwellings has to be affordable, so housing association rent and shared ownership. Lots of developments our way have them scattered across the estate, so half a dozen somewhere, another few somewhere else etc

Because I want to? Because it's my life and I want it to be nice, and that's more important to me than living in misery in order to be inclusive to some antisocial dickheads?

Charming!

Just to add with smaller developments, its hard to get social housing companies to buy the amount of housing needed - as they don't want 3/4 houses out on a limb - they'd rather them in large amounts on a bigger estate. This is why eventually planning will agree to smaller developments without social housing. It does take more time though for the developer Usually a much smaller developer not one of the big companies) to get permission and start building

if mortgaged customers don’t like it they can fuck off. There are plenty more where they came from 😁

https://www.theguardian.com/business/2025/dec/04/uk-construction-sector-suffers-sharpest-slowdown-since-first-covid-lockdown

Maybe not so much.

That’s made me really sad. I am a lefty. I work hard. (Barely above minimum wage) I pay all my rent in a SH home. I raise my dc on my own. I don’t want to live next door to criminals or anti social behaviour either. Thankfully I don’t but you never know who is going to move in next door wherever you live.
It will always be this way - there will always be hardworking low paid jobs - so where do those people go? We want our elderly and disabled looked after but don’t want to pay the carers properly? We want our streets clean and shopping centres clean and public toilets clean but we look down on people who do those roles and pay them minimally? Where should they live? What about the nursery where people drop their babies off for nearly 40 hours a week? Most of those staff aren’t even on minimum wage because of ‘apprenticeships’ where should they live?
So many good decent people working hard in honest jobs who can’t afford a home. That is the problem.

More basic spec and cheaper materials. I can usually tell on the estates around here but purely because I used to work in the area and DH has a construction company and points things out to me.

I’d never buy a new build anyway and if I’d spent £££££££ on a home only to meet dreadful neighbours I’d be annoyed but to be fair I’ve had neighbours in lovely areas with too much time on their hands who fuss about every little thing and know everyone’s business which can be just as annoying.

Do you live in one of these estates?

I'm sure mortgaged tenants smoke weed, and maybe consume drugs at the odd party, but that's a world apart from having kids outside your front door every afternoon in the summer, screaming rows outside your flat, and police raids at 5am.

There's no judgment, I'm just stating how it is.

So we should build everything to the same spec, which was the point of the Parker Morris rules that Thatcher repealed. It meant that a council house was as well (or better) built than much private housing (and awful lot of shoddy stuff went up in the 60s). I see no problem with a mix of rented and mortgaged properties. If you live in a traditional area e.g. houses built before 1960s then you will be living in such a mix. My DD lives in a conservation area. Around the corner are equally lovely houses (and some nicer) which are mostly HMOs, though I suspect they are ripe for gentrification at any minute - they are seriously attractive early Victorian villas.
As to modern mixes, I live just 5 minutes walk from newbuilds which certainly include affordable houses which are mixed in with the rest, and honestly I could not tell which was which. There are some flats as well, but they are not social housing or affordable, they overlook the river and are very des res. Some of the houses verge on the twee, unfortunately, and would have been better following Poundbury for style rather than 70s neo-Georgian.

its more likely to be coke with the middle class than weed

on our development the social housing is a mix of terraced and semi detached but do not have garages nor more than tiny frontage and have a resident parking area with one space per house so it’s easy to see them compared to the 4/5 bed houses with doubles garages. They are however very nice homes in a pleasant setting worth about £400k if on open market so hardly slumming it!

I live in SH, have lived in SH since the 90's.
There is definitely a divide in society between people who are not educated, feel demoralised, are living in poverty and feel their opportunities are limited.
There are many people who have no direction in life, no goals or basic education and see no way of carving out a good living legally for themselves.

The divide is growing larger as each generation passes, mainly because aspirations of people who want more go up whilst the aspirations of the people who have no direction or goals remains the same, and then add substance abuse into the mix too and a drop in what is considered acceptable domestic standards and this is why people who rented SH years ago, amongst other things, tended to keep their properties in a better condition and felt an immense amount of pride in their properties appearance.
That pride has evaporated for many people.

If I were to place people in categories, I would categorise them like this;

A. People who for one reason or another didnt work hard at school, didnt work hard at college, saw no future for themselves and basically drift through life distracting themselves with drugs, alcohol or whatever helps them escape from how shit they see their lives.
B. People who couldnt educate themselves, end up in minimum wage jobs and struggle to afford to live.
C. People who discovered a passion, worked hard at school, went to college, onto university, managed to get a degree and worked hard at making their desires come to life.
D. People who are funded by their parents.

Most of these people will go on to have children.
People who live in poverty are statistically more likely to have children younger than people who don't live in poverty because quite often it comes down to a poverty of aspiration, not financial poverty.

Which of these people do you think make it to the top of the SH waiting list?
They wont be the people who can afford to buy a property, or private rent.

I am extremely privileged to have neighbours who are in Category B living next door, however, I dread the day they decide to move out.

I’d be pissed if I paid 400k for a house and someone lived in one almost identical across the street for super cheap rent.

No hate though my best friend lives in a housing association house on a new estate.
lucky bitch 😒

But you haven’t gone and got a massive mortgage to buy your property have you. You’ve been given it? Surely you can see the difference?

Well I spent 20 years modelling and getting investment of mixed developments for one of the biggest house builders in the country so eager to understand why I’ve managed to get it so wrong (the 18,000 houses built from those plans so speak differently too)