to think that this has no place in this country

[brizzlemint]

www.theguardian.com/cities/2019/mar/25/too-poor-to-play-children-in-social-housing-blocked-from-communal-playground

At least one multimillion-pound housing development in London is segregating the children of less well-off tenants from those of wealthier homebuyers by blocking them from some communal play areas.

Guardian Cities has discovered that developer Henley Homes has blocked social housing residents from using shared play spaces at its Baylis Old School complex on Lollard Street, south London. The development was required to include a mix of “affordable” and social rental units in order to gain planning permission.

What are the concessions that those in new build housing associations get then Eliza?

Council tax benefit.
Housing benefit.
Cheaper council services like leisure centre membership.
Some councils drop off essentials to people - cornflakes, milk, eggs etc - and I've seen this with my own eyes so I know its true.
Food bank access.

There are loads of concessions offered that are not available to people on or just above the salary cut off which despite having more on paper, they are actually a lot worse off as they can't access any help and have to pay full price for everything, which leaves them with less than others who may or may not choose not to work

There’s a council owned playground near my home in central London but the council have negotiated a long lease with a very expensive local school who don’t have their own playground. This means none of the local residents can use this playground and there aren’t many others nearby.

As for the original story- I bet that hedge will develop a little hole in the bottom of it very quickly

@swingofthings The didn't though, they were told they would have access until they moved in, then were told they did not.

Eliza I was hoping you'd reply!

Ok so in my affluent area of the southeast we have mass building everywhere. So I had a look at new builds for housing associations on mixed estates on offer this week, it's all available for anyone to view online.

I must stipulate that these affordable housing options are only available to working families with a minimum income.

House 1- a two bed at £193 p/w
House 2- a four bed at £250 p/w

Not quite the cheap deal portrayed by the media and many folk on here and these families are the ones just scraping by.

So tell me, these ghastly social housing tenants who are paying £900+ a month, why should they not have access to the park? It's not like they're not contributing to society.

And just so you know, on our estate we all have to pay a management fee for upkeep and all of our greens, parks etc, are available to ALL and no one complains about the dreadful 'lower class' children being allowed to play with the richer ones...

The reality of life is that people on higher income get to buy more. Those kids who can't play in the other playground with the kids who they go to school with will have 17/18yo siblings who will have to leave near their school friends who can afford driving lessons and car parked in the development parking spaces. That's how it is. So the question really is at what age is it acceptable that kids realise that fact of life? At what age do kids actually notice?

The country where I grew up doesn’t force developers to include social housing in expensive developments. Strangely enough the result is better social cohesion and less resentment from either side. It’s actually a common psychological effect apparently. For instance airline passengers flying in economy will rate their experience as worse if they have to walk through business to get to their seats. Instead of forcing the ruck to subsidise the poor making everyone discontent in the process the government should be relaxing planning rules dramatically so everyone can afford somewhere decent to live without forcing others to pay for it.

People with monet get to biy more....what like communal playgrounds? What a wonderful lesson to teach our young!
Perhaps parks now should be pay only.
Sarcasm obviously.

@seingofthings that wasn’t the arrabgementthough

It's not the children's fault if some parents scraped for a deposit and others didn't.

It's not the children's fault if some parents scraped for a deposit and others didn't.

That's not how life works though unfortunately. Should I be able to rock up to a Buckingham Palace and tell them I'm entitled to move in and use their gardens because their house is better than mine and its not faaaaairrrrr?

This looks awful because the developments are side by side and were built concurrently. If you think about it though, this sort of thing happens all the time. Where I live, we have minimum square footage requirements for
Houses and gardens. This effectively keeps out people with lower incomes. We also have to pay a monthly fee for shared recreation facilities. Down the road you will find a large complex with smaller homes and it’s own recreation facilities. Most of those homes are rented. So we have defacto separated the children’s play areas, they are just not immediately adjacent so people don’t complain.

Luckily I also live in an area with great public play provisioning that attract kids of all economic backgrounds.

People with monet get to biy more....what like communal playgrounds
Like many things. A significant reason why people of working age chose to work in higher paid jobs is so that thry can give more to their kids rather then to themselves. As said, it is life. You could make it that everyone gets the same but if that was the case, what would be the insentive of aiming for a higher paid jobs?

I'm in no way saying that it is right that kids should be seggregated like that, but I understand why it would come to this to attract home owners to want to live there rather than somewhere they don't have to share everything when they are paying more than other residents.

Ooh the irony. The must be on the old Lillian Bayliss school site, originally Vauxhall manor.

My in laws have this at their flat. The situation I believe was that one block of flats already existed, council owned. They allowed developers to build further 3/4 (can't remember) blocks, if they did up the council flats too. There's a lovely little play area in the middle, all fenced off (fair enough for security etc) but only the private flats have use of it, despite it being right next to all of them. Really mean spirited, and I know my SIL has tried to complain about it, to no avail (they are in a private flat). This is in Greenwich.

FWIW I'm not keen on the way this looks either, but I can see a difference between private leisure facilities and essentials that everyone shares no matter what they've paid (NHS, education, etc.)

I realise they're children and also that this is what happens when provision's privately funded, but realistically those with more money will always be able to access more "extras" and I'm not sure that can ever be changed

And sadly, any "cutting a hole in the hedge" will only persuade some in the expensive homes that keeping the affordable housing kids out was the right thing to do in the first place

Please everyone take the time to read MojoMoons post on page 2

It's important to understand why this is happening.

Councils have had their budgets slashed and are scrabbling around desperate for money to keep essential services running.

In London in particular, the most valuable asset many Councils have is land. Lambeth used land previously occupied by a state school for this development.
It's desperate for funding. It's a borough with a higher proportion of more vulnerable or dependant residents than many other boroughs. This translates as a greater need for essential services.

Public land given a private function (with a cursory nod to social housing). We have a right wing government who thinks this is ok and has driven Councils down this path.

On a positive note, this has incensed many residents in Lambeth and the vast majority have expressed outrage rather than views on 'unworthy' social housing tenants. I'm quite taken aback by some of the posts on this thread.

With the amount of outrage that frequently occurs on here when there are threads about how overweight a lot of children are now i thought most would be disgusted at this and saying everything should be done to encourage kids to play and excersise..............oh wait.

Just shows that the replies on some of the weight threads are all about concern trolling.

"Social housing tenants weren't allowed to use the gym in the main building "

And are the least likely to be able to afford a gym membership.

Why don't the management company offer use of the playground to the SH tenants if they also pay the fee? Remove the hedges which block access and have the playground gated with security key needed for entry. If you pay to maintain the space, you get to use it, if you are unwilling, then you can't.
This should never have been a condition of the build, since it isn't free to use. I can see why homeowners would be unwilling to subsidize other people. Owning their house doesn't mean they have lots of money and even if they do, they don't owe it to other people's children.
A fair society is about equality of access to healthcare, education, housing, not necessarily playgrounds paid for by other people.

It's a park not Buckingham palace though.

You see i think that parks should be a public space...if the governmwnt are so worried about childhood obesity etc then more free spaces should be encouraged.

I totally agree with Eliza They were discussing this on BBC Radio London this morning as though it were a scandal of some sort. Why on earth do they think they should be entitled to use something they don't pay for?

I would say incentive for higher paid jobs= holidays abroad, cars, nice clothes and a mortgage. Parks should be for all. All the best ones are. Perhaps dd shouldn't be allowed into the local park...i am a student single mum so don't pay council tax.

A significant reason why people of working age chose to work in higher paid jobs is so that thry can give more to their kids rather then to themselves

Well I vote for all nurses the care-workers retraining for jobs in the City then.

Society gives great monetary award to jobs that are actually harmful to it, pays a pittance to the essential jobs and then discriminates against the children of the low-paid jobs. And you wonder why so many children become anti-social when they grow up?

isadora because originally the planning application allowed all residents access to the play areas and then after planning permission was granted it was altered. This is the issue. Developers are not held to the agreements made in planning applications ( possibly because it wasn't the developer who got the PP in the first place, often it is the seller of the land) nor in S106 agreements which are made as part of the PP but which are not always complied with and local authorities appear to have few ways of enforcing them