Active discussions

Meet the Other Phone. Flexible and made to last.

Meet the Other Phone.
Flexible and made to last.

Buy now

Please or to access all these features

Talk
AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

Council house looks like council house

111 replies

OdiesMum · 06/05/2021 08:45

Why do councils insist on making their properties look like council properties?
I’m referring to a council estate in my city. It’s a terrible estate, bad reputation, horrible place to live (I used to live there). Anyway they pulled down the high rise flats and the crappy 70s council houses on the main road going through the estate and started building new houses. They looked lovely, modern new builds, you would never have known they were council ... really improved the look of the area. Once they were finished guess what the council did? They stuck bright blue tacky cladding all down the sides of them that just screamed out “council”. Ruined the look immediately. Why do they do this? Why put crappy cladding all over everything?? Why do they insist on council properties LOOKING like council properties?

OP posts:
VettiyaIruken · 06/05/2021 10:05

What's wrong with looking like a council house?

SoMuchForSummerLove · 06/05/2021 10:07

I don't know what 'looking like a council house' means exactly, but I think the trend for brightly coloured panels all over buildings (commercial and domestic) should be drawing to a close shortly.

Whammyyammy · 06/05/2021 10:08

My BIL is a builder, he said when he has worked on new build estates, the HA properties differ from the private ones massively. Normally no garages or drives, no patios or turf laid, no carpet put down, cheaper kitchen installed and no options offered to tenant's.

TheYearOfSmallThings · 06/05/2021 10:12

I know what you mean, although in some older houses I don't mind it because they were well built, if uniform.

But yes, slapping oddly coloured cladding or balconies or railings on newly built estates does announce to the world that these are council properties, and I don't think it benefits anyone.

Lockheart · 06/05/2021 10:12

@VettiyaIruken

What's wrong with looking like a council house?
Round my way most council properties are in large Brutalist buildings. I know Brutalism is a bit marmite but personally I think it's a huge bloody eyesore so I'd say quite a lot.

It's not a problem specific to council housing, we've really lost our touch for building beautiful houses / streets. The Victorians were masters of good civic architecture, now everything we build is an unimaginative heterogeneous mass of glass and concrete boxes. And don't get me started on the cramped and cheap identikit new build housing which gets thrown up. Absolutely awful housing provision.

BingBunnyIsAnnoying · 06/05/2021 10:13

My Mum owns an ex council house, she's been there ten years. I only realised it was ex council when she told me recently

It's a really nice house. It's like a Tardis inside. Good size garden too and she's an amazing gardener. I would have absolutely no issues with living there and saying it was my house

In my Dad's village though the council houses do look all the same and very drab, even the bought one's

LST · 06/05/2021 10:14

The only way you know they are council round here is everyone has the same door.

RickiTarr · 06/05/2021 10:14

It varies. My first house was ex-LA and it looked like a perfectly normal (if smallish) 1930s, bay window terrace. Massive garden and good build quality. Architects were employed directly by councils in the heyday of public housing, so designs varied.

The big estates even as far back as the thirties looked quite homogeneous and from the sixties onwards brutalist architecture took over for a while. So there’s that, but people pay small fortunes to live in the Barbican, so it wasn’t all terrible.

ElphabaTWitch · 06/05/2021 10:19

Council houses here look better than privately owned. All have new rough casting and new roofs. The insides were done a while back through some council home improvement scheme. They are better looked after with tax money than privately owned homes where owners scrimp and scrape if they are lucky enough to afford such things.

redheadwitch · 06/05/2021 10:20

Similar idea round here; all council houses have "council windows". Ugly windows with a thick frame right down the middle and crap mechanisms for opening.

I'm a council tenant and was very lucky to get a home in a nice area and spacious enough for my family. I've lived here for 8 years now and probably will for another few years (saving for a deposit is nigh impossible).

This area will have, at one point, been all council houses but the "right to buy" means that now, council houses are the minority.

I suppose it does irk me a little that regardless of how much I look after my garden, upgrade the front of my property with paint, door fixtures, potted plants etc - I still stick out to the whole street as one of the "council" people. Perhaps I'm merely imagining the snobbery and its not factual, but I doubt it.

SoMuchForSummerLove · 06/05/2021 10:22

@Whammyyammy

My BIL is a builder, he said when he has worked on new build estates, the HA properties differ from the private ones massively. Normally no garages or drives, no patios or turf laid, no carpet put down, cheaper kitchen installed and no options offered to tenant's.
The no garages and drives is a planning permission thing - developers don't have to provide them for social housing (or sometimes they provide half a car space per household).
Chillychangchoo · 06/05/2021 10:23

I live in a council house on a council estate. My house does indeed look very council.

I wish it didn’t, so you are not being unreasonable.

They will probably knock them down soon for new builds which will be nice but we will absolutely have less space.

x2boys · 06/05/2021 10:23

@LST

The only way you know they are council round here is everyone has the same door.
This is true all councils/ Housing association association houses have the same door,although we did get a choice of colour ( from about a choice of 5 or 6) plus we all have a new (ish) roof
CirclesWithinCircles · 06/05/2021 10:24

Probably to do with some awarding of large contracts which are supposed to provide value for money in some mysterious way...

I think some of the council/ex council houses in Central Scotland are absolutely hideous and depressing to look at. The ones which are very square, and to a block and covered in a dismal grey-brown harling with very obvious exterior guttering. It just seems such a deliberate signal to make them obviously council housing and set apart from other styles. Some of the more modern ones are pretty nice.

TheVolturi · 06/05/2021 10:25

🙄 Why do you care op?

Cheerfulcharlie · 06/05/2021 10:27

If the developers are selling some privately and some to the council / HA, they will want to make the private ones seem 'better' so the individuals purchasing think they are getting something a step up from the council / HA ones. Same with the interiors - sometimes they deliberately choose fittings or finishes that are ugly for the HA (even if they cost the same as the ones that look better) so the private purchasers will feel they are getting a much better deal.

DontBiteTheBoobThatFeedsYou · 06/05/2021 10:28

Council estates have a look, and those who are denying so are being pedantic.

OP what do you mean, blue cladding? I can't picture what it is you mean?

We have loads of new builds being thrown up around here at the moment.

JensonsAcolyte · 06/05/2021 10:29

All the HA houses on my newly built estate have different doors and windows from the private houses.

I’ve often wondered why they felt the need to differentiate.

Saladd0dger · 06/05/2021 10:30

My new build council property has drive, turf and a patio. You can’t tell it’s a council property. It’s the exact same as all the private houses in the street. My neighbour and I are the only council.
My old council estate is a mess and looks horrible. Houses all run down with no maintenance done for years. So glad to be off of it now.

LST · 06/05/2021 10:31

@JensonsAcolyte

All the HA houses on my newly built estate have different doors and windows from the private houses.

I’ve often wondered why they felt the need to differentiate.

It'll be the cost
Mytiredeyeshaveseenenough · 06/05/2021 10:32

To be honest, when you see some of the hideous new build estates being thrown up around here, they look worse than all but the worst council housing.

Early council housing (low cost housing for t'workers) tended to be well built with large gardens then as it became more of a numbers game, they shrank massively.

inmyslippers · 06/05/2021 10:35

I grew up on a council estate and all the houses looked the same. Now live in a council house as an adult. It's in a row of houses built on a new morris homes estate as part of affordable housing. You can easily tell we're the council houses. Theyre built as small as legally possible and the neighbours sit outside and talk with each other when the weathers nice. Nobody does this on the bought houses or shared ownership ones 😆

gamerchick · 06/05/2021 10:39

@LST

The only way you know they are council round here is everyone has the same door.
And windows Grin

A house a house. Those new builds being chucked up are horrible anyway.

ComtesseDeSpair · 06/05/2021 10:42

@JensonsAcolyte

All the HA houses on my newly built estate have different doors and windows from the private houses.

I’ve often wondered why they felt the need to differentiate.

Cost. There’s no government funding available for the building of social housing. When councils and housing associations apply for commercial loans to develop new housing, they have to make a business case which assumes that the rental income of the property will pay back the loan over e.g. 25 years. With land as expensive as it is in many places, trying to make the numbers work with very low social rents is incredibly difficult - so they lower the build cost by removing all the nice-to-haves and upgrades.

In any new mixed tenure housing development being built by a developer, the cost of building the social rented properties is cross-subsidised by the intermediate rent / shared ownership / outright ownership properties, so making them as desirable as possible is part of the business case. Social tenants pay a much lower than market rent to rent a lower specification property, just as in the private sector you’d pay a rent or purchase price which reflects your property’s specification. I don’t think there’s anything wrong with that.

ArtsArea · 06/05/2021 10:44

Op, I've had this in my town. Lovely new new street was built. Thought they were all finished and looked nice from the outside. Then a few weeks later - blue cladding on the houses! Like what the hell! To me looked like an added extra cost for no bloody reason. Doesn't bring anything to the house - actually looks really crap now.

I live in a council house with cladding too. I hate it. We bought the house off someone who bought it via the right to buy for 3x less than what I paid for it!