Should exceptionally large council house gardens be used to build more local authority homes?

[Slightyamusedandsilly]

While out walking yesterday, I took a back lane behind some council housing in my area.

Just to describe the area/situation. Council housing is interspersed between older (Victorian / Edwardian) housing in this area. Mainly rows of terraces, but also semis.

I hadn't realised until this walk just how big the back gardens of the council houses around here are. They are enormous. Really really long. When sat alongside the terraces, many of which have small backyards only, the footprint of these local authority homes is huge.

Given the huge shortage of LA housing, and given that the land already belongs to the LA, I think these gardens could be dissected to create space for new LA housing. The cost would be lower because the LA already owns the land.

It just seems to make sense to me. So many people are in desperate need of housing, but will never be able to buy privately. This is a huge unused resource.

LOL even with a 2nd house in these particular homes, they'd have more garden left for each than most of the privately owned terraces around them.

Are council tenants poor? That wasn't my impression. I thought they were no different to people who own their homes.

What about privately owned houses with big gardens?

Should they be built on too?

That would help with housing stock too?

Maybe we should all be limited to small gardens. How about that idea op?

But terraced houses don't have much space, either, a lot of the time. Why begrudge outside space? Why not build houses where derelict commercial buildings stand. 🤷‍♀️

Do council / housing association streets even exist anymore?

Around here half of the ex council homes are privately owned and the rest are housing association. It would be impossible to build over, and get access to, a random mish mash of gardens.

As I said, I'm not sure how compulsory purchase orders work. I think currently it's only for roads/transport links.

But that is a financial outlay. LA land is already owned.

I agree @LogicAboveAll. I think it's called grey belt land?

The only ones I have known have been older houses and owner occupied, bought by the tenants, ie ex-council houses. They are lovely houses with huge gardens by town standards and looked after very well. I know two people who grew up in such houses and their parents bought them, and another couple my age who bought theirs.

Most houses built in recent times have been more compact and with small gardens. I think that is the way to go, and maisonettes.

How dare those CH tenants have big back gardens. A front garden big enough for an old sofa is good enough for the likes of them.

None of that round this way. All very well looked after. I think that POV is pretty offensive actually.

I think your Op is pretty offensive actually.

Exactly. I used to live on a street of ex NCB houses and on both sides of the road.the biggest bit of garden was on the south facing side of the house. Some residents still used them like allotments and had perfect rows of veg growing.

Really? What part is offensive? Or at least, what part rivals implying LA tenants fly tip?

How old are the houses @Slightyamusedandsilly? It’s possible that there was originally another row of houses intended behind. My mum grew up in a council house on the corner of a small lane and they had a huge garden. The intention was originally that another house would be build next to it. Land may have been cheaper at the time, and people often used their back garden for growing veg. My estate was put up immediately after the Second World War, we have decent sized gardens and the houses are very solidly built. Very few remain as LA accommodation now.

Given your statement that you think bit inaccurate that LA tenants have less, and you are asking why living in a LA home would equate to having a low income, does make me wonder where you live as I would think that in the majority of areas there are quite stringent rules around bidding for council accommodation, often criteria are as simple as being homeless or living with severe overcrowding.

If the houses are as lovely as you say OP, they are almost certainly mostly in private ownership now.

I live in an ex council house myself (and it does indeed have a 30m long back garden). Down my road of approx 80 houses, only 3-4 are still council tenants. The rest are owner occupied.

Wow!!! That is a lot. I knew there had been a sell off but that's crazy.

Damn those poor people having nice gardens, eh?

Worked for a housing association or should I say developer... already happened and happening. Flats have more flats built on the roof (disruption is off the scale), communal play parks and open ground built on (loss of any open space for children, loss of light), garages built on, even an entire neighbourhood in an SE Hampshire town under threat of compulsory purchase as the houses, bungalows, flats have gardens, landscaped spaces and the housing association wants blocks of flats in place and to increase the density significantly (many of these properties owned for decades and irreplaceable at their market value). We're not short of housing, we are short of housing people thrive in, where they want to be and we have a pint pot country now being forced to accommodate a gallon. Oh if you own, doesn't necessarily mean you're safe now, especially in mixed tenure ownership areas, as developers are hungry for more!

The govt appropriates things all the time in the name of fairness and welfare. That’s what most of the tax system is for.

In this case the gardens are actually already the councils.

They just need to decide if they want a more or less even distribution of it.

Though I’d actually move to a system where council housing is of roughly-even economic value rather than roughly-even size.

Isn’t OP’s argument that “all poor people should have some garden” in preference to “some have lots of garden while others have no council housing at all”.

Can you explain your last point please?

This has just made me think about my (totally massive) garden! I have a quite nice front garden. Big enough for garden furniture, plants or a veg garden and my little one to play in. I live in one of two very old semi detached HA homes. One is a private let now as it’s owned. They are huge houses. So I have my font garden then there’s a fence and a gate to the back. The garden the continues around the side and all the way down the back and around the back of the house, in like a plus sign shape. The other HA houses are at a 90 degree angle and form a row of terraces but still large homes with front and back (more normal sized gardens. This post has just made me realise that probably about 6 more houses of the same size could fit in my garden, not including mine! I think next door (not the attached one) could fit about 3. The one attached about 4!! It’s a good point (the houses would be very close together though). Older HA homes on estates seem to be bigger with these gardens (it’s all tree lines with little cul de sacs that branch off (like mine). There are some new build ones down the road and they are like shoe boxes. Tiny drives on the front and little square gardens at the back. Some on main roads not tucked in leafy little squares. So they’ve clearly thought about how to Maximise land to fit as many as they can onto it. Rather than build huge stone houses with massive reads around them! To be fair I prefer these houses to the new ones….. they are pretty much sardined in, open your front door and it’s right next to next doors front door!! Interesting post when I compared old and new HA homes in my area!

Ah yes. There is huge disparity in the value of council housing by location. eg Kensington £1.2m average, inner London £400-600k average, north east England £150k ish.

I realise there will always be some disparity, becuase we can’t have zero council housing in prime central London and people have local attachments.

But I think the money would do a lot more for more people if it were more evenly distributed. It would free up a huge amount of money for council housing outside London if we did things differently.

OK OK! Thank you. Yes, I agree. I remember years ago I used to live in Chelsea (a live in employee) and was amazed that next to the uber wealthy were council flats. The VALUE of those flats must have been astronomical. Probably all private now.

It very much is, other than the poor people bit. All people. Our massive reduction in the private rental sector is leading to HMOs where not only do people not have their own home, they have to live in one room as adults, leading to a breakdown in family structures. This isn't just the unemployed or the under class, it's people who are full-time workers and proper working class families too.

We need to do something and this was just a musing of mine as a very much not urban planner/housing officer.