To think segregation In new build estates needs to stop!

[FourFiveSecondsFromSmiling]

I live on a new build estate built about a year ago, 15% of the 500 homes are social housing.

The biggest problem we have on the estate is parking, the parking spaces are not allocated, it is generally considered that you park in a space near your home. I could not find a space near my home (social housing) so I parked on the private part of the estate and walked.

So I go to take dc to school the other day and a women rushes out saying I stole her space. I explained that parking spaces were not allocated and that she as am I are free to park anywhere. She then started ranting about how she works to pay for my house and called me council estate scum (infront of dc). I stated crying after I dropped dc off.

The next issue is that the residents association is generally hostile to the social tennants. I went to a meeting and could feel the hostility after I said my road.

We are constantly blamed for any crime on the estate because many in social housing including me have teenagers when the private homes tend to be 50+ .

I don't want to live in a community that has segregation (we are pretty much separate to the other homes apart from by the road). I don't know why because you pay £250,000 plus for a house you deserve to be treated better (or look down on others)

Aibu?

Would the answer be to dot social housing among the private housing, or to have it on a completely separate estate?

I used to live on a new build estate, and yes people were um...uncomfortable about social housing, and resentful that the social housing was closest to the school, guaranteeing those children a place, where as children from very large expensive houses might not get in.

There was a general snobbery though, and someone like me, in a road with 4 bed detached houses with no study and a single garage were definitely looked down on by those with 4 bedrooms, two with en-suites, a study and a double garage. Even though we didn't need a house that big.

Couldn't wait to move out of there!

The shorty woman sounds vile and common as muck.

YANBU. Sadly social housing tenants experience bad press due to the negative behaviour of a minority, which makes great TV entertainment these days and also, I think, due to the boom in home ownership, to which we are all expected to aspire. Social housing and private rented accommodation is no longer seen in a positive light.

Mixed tenure developments, such as yours OP, would have had planning conditions in place determining the minimum number of social housing homes to be constructed.

The location of the social housing homes is often sited separately from other tenures, such as private sale, private rented and shared ownership for specific reasons (other than snobbery), for example the social housing may be owned by (sold to) a Registered Provider (housing association) and the leaseholder units owned by the private developer.

In terms of the management and maintenance of the new homes and common areas some costs are apportioned differently between social housing tenants and private leaseholders (leaseholders pay more). Landlords of social housing homes have to comply with regulations that determine the maximum level of rent and management costs that can be charged. This means that social landlords will specify finishes (vinyl instead of carpeting) and services (non-concierge/gym membership) that ensures that the new homes are affordable and keep within compliance levels.

Sorry for the long-winded post, hope it helps to clarify the 'segregation' angle of the OP.

I have reported her.

Such a shame that this kind of snobbery exists.

My (small) estate is entirely private, however the 2 houses opposite are rentals. We have had a couple of neighbours over the last few years renting these houses and they have mostly been lovely people.

There was a row about parking recently when me of the neighbours (who owns her house) has a go at one of the renters, as they took the last parking space and she had to park elsewhere. She was very rude and told the renter that they weren't entitled to park as they didn't own their own house.

I was in my garden at the time nd she tried to involve me in her row. I just laughed and told her to stop being to a 'Hyacinth'.

I don't care if you own your house, rent or have a HA house. Have pride in where you live and do your best to get on with your neighbours and I'll happily welcome you as my neighbour.

Lynette, yes mixed tenure housing is the way ahead.

Four/Five, are any tenants sitting on the residents' association?

I agree but also feel the developers need to assist- clearly marking out social housing by different style or poorer quality will not help the position, if the councils are greedy enough to find their local need for housing by essentially blackmailing developers to include them then they should be part of the development as a whole- look, feel, size etc
Parking is emotive everywhere and again developments with 3-5 bed houses should at lease assume 1.5 cars per house not 1 car to 3 houses it's always building up problems!

I can imagine the residents association being a difficult group for someone living in social housing to break into, sadly. I think you'd have to be a very tough nut and a smart cookie!

The other issue is the tarring of all for one- we have a delightful family by us on the entrance to the estate
Loud music litter bins left inconsiderately drinking inroad bits of cars on parking, parking loads of work vans inconsiderately (like accross neighbours drives) etc
They are in one of 20 odd social houses- no one notices anyone here per se but everyone knows them
They could just as easily be in private houses and a nuisance but they don't and it causes an immediate assumption
Btw if you have a back garden why sit at front in road drinking

But isn't there an idea that lots of parking is bad...encourages cars and not public transport?

One house I lived in (rented) had planning permission to build four detached houses in the garden declined - one of the reasons being there would be too much parking, discouraging the use of local transport.

I don't agree with segregation, however it is unrealistic to expect social housing providers to fork out for housing that privately costs £250k for example. Surely it wouldn't be feasible. So i think it is to be expected that there are different levels of 'finish', similarly to private owned houses who pay for upgraded features etc.

A housing estate near me however, has taken it too far and built social housing in a different brick colour to private!

Where did this "them and us" attitude towards social housing tennants come from? In my experience the biggest snobs are the ones who've come from poorer backgrounds themselves.

There's nowhere near enough social housing. So many people I know are living in private rentals, struggling to pay the rents and having to move about all of the time. What they wouldn't give for the security of a council or HA property.

Chchch Yes, these mixed developments need to be tenure-blind, which they are becoming more and more. Parking is a major issue which is not help by parking restrictions imposed on developments - in order to meet the government's reduction in carbon emissions - which usually impacts unfairly on social housing tenants.

Lynette surely the resident's association should represent the different tenures types living in the new development? I would certainly raise this as an issue.

op.

I live in a ha house on a big estate. We are.opposite the shops and kfc and the land that they haven't decided what to do with yet. It's obvious that we are ha properties.

But I hold my head up high. I am proud of my.lovely home and pleased that we have it. We can't buy for various reasons and we.now have a secure tenancy which is security for me and my dcs.

I would be really really childish and if she had another.pop at me I would stick my tongue out at her. I would want to call her a wankerbastard but that might get me into trouble.

Definitely join the.residents association. Even if its just to turn up with fake tattoos, some chavtastic clothes and 2 inch roots. Just to push some blood pressure up.

I think urban sky is quite magnificent.

Still think you should check re allocation of spaces, the HA tenants where I live didn't realise as there are no signs etc

In my new build road/estate the social housing and private residences are mixed up.

I politely smiled for 20 minutes once listening to a neighbour moan about the HA kids and the trouble they caused, LP families and damage in the park, and complementing me about how well I'd raised my DS etc.

I then politely pointed out that I was in the HA property, that those children came from private housing and her son was one of the ones causing trouble.

I smiled PA and walked off as she stood there catching flies. Then turned with a ps - I'm also a LP!

YANBU at all. People think HA, council tenants, LP have a chip on their shoulder about people treating them differently - but I've come across it too many times.

Join that residents accossiatiom with you head held high.

YANBU OP...I live in the last council house in a road that has had all the properties bought, both sides think they can dictate how we live our lives...I work FT and we pay full rent. We have to put up with parties lasting days, vacumming at midnight, if we have friends round during the afternoon rare we get banging on the wall/shouting.
My closest friend moved about 15 years ago into a new build estate that had a row of 3 HA houses...a note went round to the new owner occupiers giving details of who to complain to about the HA tenants...before they moved in!!
Another friend is being harassed by her neighbours family. The police are involved, both houses worth over £350,000...

Wherever I have lived owner occupiers on the estate have been more troublesome than social housing tenants.

The worse was the HA locked a fire escape at the behest of the private residents.

Bloody hell, I bet the Fire service would throw the book at the HA for stunt!.

They argued it wasn't technically locked because the occupants of the block had keys. Sadly for those of us living on upper floors of the middle block between the two stairwells would have been royally fucked if 'our' stairwell had been blocked by fire

My estate is a mix. When it was built there were a lot of comments about it being a 'council estate' because it was partly social housing.

It is one of the most sort after in the area now.

The parking is allocated here which makes a huge difference though. And I think parking anywhere which doesn't have specified parking for each property is liable to run into some sort of tension regardless of whether its social housing or not.

Our estate is well done. You can't tell who is social and who isn't.

The thing is, snobs are snobs. It doesn't matter if they own their house or not. They'd still be difficult if they didn't own their property.

Here, the social houses are better than the new builds. The owned new builds were sold with mud and chicken wire fences. The HA ones had turf, full 6ft wooden fence, sheds and converted lofts.

They had their front gardens re landscaped twice during the 2 years the builder was selling the other houses, as they were destroyed and filled with rubbish, so the builder kept re doing them so they could sell the houses nearby.

I was a council tenant in a new build block of flats.

The social tenants had a separate door to the other tenets. Their door was nearer to the good schools. Important at the time for school admissions based on distance., although the Borough has now changed to catchments.

We had one lift, they had three. The block was separated by locked glass doors, we could see their nicely carpeted halls,with their working lifts: they could see our Lino floors with one non working lift. All the social housing people had small children and the block had nine floors. When our lift broke, as it often did, we were not allowed to use the "posh"lifts, even though the doors could be unlocked. I was pregnant, with a four month old baby, and I had to carry my baby and her buggy up all those floors. We weren't allowed to leave the buggys in the hall, it looked scruffy. I often went out of the house with the lift working, came back to find it not working, and had to wait till my parter got in from work to be able to get back in. When I asked if we could use the "posh" lifts I was told there would have to be a vote by the non social iodising tenants- they voted against us using the lift as we might make the lifts messy.

I no longer live there.

I completely feel for you OP.

Should, sounds like my old flat. We lived in a horseshoe shaped single block with one lift and entrance at each end and the fire door separating the ha side from the private side on each floor. Ha side was vinyl and private side carpet. Ridiculously it was the private side with the ridiculous service charges where the lift was always broken!

Surely if you live in flats that is one half HA and one half private, and the HA did doesn't have carpets or extra lifts...that's down to the HA?

Reading this thread I can actually could attempt guess which are the HA houses in our phase of this development. They don't have parking spaces and there is a bit of trouble between the flat owners/renters and one particular row of houses over parking. Nothing like the OPs, just a reminder that the parking outside the flats is for flat owners, not the row of houses opposite. While there are no numbers painted on the spaces, the flats do have an allocated parking spot and people from this row of houses are parking in them. The people who live in these houses now park on the road. Which they aren't meant to do. The other option would be to park in the main road.

I can only assume the HA, for some reason didn't want the parking spaces as part of the plots?

I never really thought about it before.

Oh and from the outside all our house look pretty much the same. 2 different styles on this estate. But they all look very similar. Some have integral garages and some (like ours) don't.