Improvements to homes has left Britain a jumbled mess

[Christmasclemetines]

All over the UK. From council estates to private, high streets and main streets, ‘improvements’ over the years has left the UK looking unkempt and ugly.

Im from a working class Scottish town, that has a large number of social housing. Most of it built in the 50s. I lived in one such home from the 80s to the early 2000s.

• Most of the houses were uniform (windows, doors etc)
• all had front gardens - grass, hedges, plants
• hedges were used for boundaries

However, things started to change and it affected how the town looks. Right-to-buy, which my own family took advantage of, meant that homeowners made changes.

It may seem odd to some MNers but it was actually a sign that you had ‘money’ and it wasn’t a ‘council’ house if you changed the windows and doors, had it pebble dashed in a different stone. But even then, people who bought the homes lived in them and looked after them. Now many of these homes are privately rented. In addition the local council have also made ‘improvements’ to the remaining social homes

• removing all the hedges to install walls
• removing grass to put down stones
• new pebble dashing

So now the whole town is a patchwork of really ugly housing. These homes were lovely. They were so well designed, lots of space, nice wide roads. Now

• gardens have been paved over into driveways
• extensions in many of the roofs. All different styles
• each house has a different boundary- wall, fence etc. All in different states of maintenance
• wheelie bins everywhere
• many renter properties where the tentants dont care and the private landlord does nothing to keep the outside attractive
• Doors and windows all different along the street.
• houses are all pebble dashed in different colours.

But this isn’t unique. Private estates built here in the 70/80s are now changing hands from older homeowners who probably bought when new to young families and the same is happening . A certain uniform look is gone

• They tear out the shrubs and garden at the front and usually extend the driveway
• paint or put in ugly dark grey windows and doors
• remove hedges and put up grey fencing

They stand out like a sore thumb but others also come in and try their own ‘new looks’ and the hotchpotch look starts here too.

Even the ‘posh’ homes in our area. Huge 1930s detached homes. All that lovely paint work and the doors gone. Mature planting ripped out and more driveway.

Currently only listed buildings of a certain category need council approval to change the exterior. But AIBU that councils should do more for all areas, to ensure we all have a nice environment to live in? And stricter rules about the exterior of the property to maintain community harmony should be introduced?

The nice areas across the country, are so because they maintain a certain aesthetic. In nice areas of Bath , Cotswolds, Edinburgh etc. In Edinburgh there were burdens on properties that meant homes built 100s of years ago maintained their uniformity.

We need the councils to do more! For a start, charge those that pave over their gardens higher council tax rates, to account for them putting further pressure on drains when it rains. Fines for private landlords who don’t maintain the outside gardens/outside areas.

The councils should

• encourage people to plant hedges and trees. Make grants available
• buying properties to convert to resident car parks for residents in busy areas
• restricting all homes to exterior work that fits in with the homes surrounding it
• recognising that social housing must look aesthetically pleasing too and they should be leading the way in conserving the looks and designs.

I worked really bloody hard to own my property, and I'll make it look how I like tysm.

You might not like how I want it to look, I might not like how you want it look. Taste is subjective.

I've renovated one maisonette and three houses in the last 35 years.

I've dealt with amateur installed wiring, leaking home plumbing, a home installed gas fire that was literally lethal and condemned on day1. Rotted windows and doors, uninsulated lofts, leaking roofs, a dining room floor that had rotten holes tacked over with flattened bean tins. Repointing with bathroom sealant. One with an earth floor - in the 21st century!!

This is what people are living with. This is what needs dealing with first. People deserve dry, safe homes. What they look like is a long way down the list.

My current house has taken 13 years and cost £100,000 to put right. It should finally be finished in March.

Any decent govt would be bringing our current housing stock up to scratch. Insulation is not expensive.

I was walking round a used to to be council now a mixed bag and yes it was a big unkempt. Hodge podge, lots of under maintained bits of fencing, flats had metal panels on balconies which were rusting quite badly in places.

I think the biggest issue is uneven/ patched up pavements and so many bins. Householders used to have 1 bin now you have 5 or 6. Terraces with tiny front gardens literally just full of bins.

The council are probably using pebbledash as insulation, not for cosmetic reasons.

My DS lives in an town where large sandstone blocks were used to build a council estate (obviously years ago) The type of sandstone that is really desirable now and people would pay a premium for it as a material for building a new house.

So whilst the bricks are lovely, it’s still run down and you can tell it was council built and owned, because of the upkeep (or lack of) you can tell there is poverty. It’s not knows as a nice place to live.

But that is to protect specific properties of architectural or historic rarity, not 1930s semis..

I've just renovated my house and replaced single glazed wooden windows with triple glazed upvc. Wood would have been prohibitively expensive. And I was the only person in two years to place an offer on this house. No-one else was prepared to take it on.

Not if it affects our environment. By putting green plastic "grass" in the garden and removing hedgerows they damage it for everyone.

Are you talking about tenement building flats? Which I have seen in Scotland and look lovely from the outside.
Bescause flats where I live are Very ugly buildings

You already need planning permission in England to pave over a front garden.

Wheelie bins are a complete blot on the environment.

Autonomous cars could transform things - you would no longer need to own one, just call one when wanted. And since the average car spends 90% of its time parked, you could vastly decrease the number of vehicles.

We've had to replace every wooden frame window in our house. We spent the first couple of years we were here repairing and re-painting to try and protect the surface. Trying to find joiners who still do this work was unbelievably difficult. Everyone who came out to quote said the same thing - the people who used to have the skills for it have mostly retired.

So we decided to replace them. Got a quote like for like and a quote for uPVC. The latter was over £20k cheaper. And we live in an ordinary house - it's not massive or listed or in a conservation area. I went for a dark colour because it looks better against the brickwork, and the original wood windows were a dark colour.

I don't regret it and I don't care one bit if someone wants to be snobby that I've now got uPVC windows instead of wood. The bliss of being able to open them and not have to check the bottom for fear it's rotten and might be unsafe. They are tilt and turn as well which is even better, because I can now clean the outsides myself.

Our LA repainted their housing stock on our 100 year old estate comprising of 95% little uniformly white semis (the remainder painted in sympathetic pale pastel shades by a few home owners). The LA decided to let individual tenants choose the new paint from a palette of four dour shades of terracotta, grey, khaki and blue. Over the course of 4 weeks we watched the easy-on-the-eye homogeneity of our area (on the fringes of a conservation area so largely unchanged in the century since it was built -hedges, cottage front gardens, single drive ways, uniform porches etc) get completely mangled by a Lowryesque pallette which really clashes and grates. Nobody is happy and it looks shit, with each colour as bad as the next. I cannot think how this colour scheme was conceived when literally every other little change an individual resident may hope to implement is generally stipulated against in the tenancy agreement or deeds as incongruent with original design of the estate.
Bad planning policy.

And this is also happening in older social housing Unsuitable insulation is being/has been retro fitted and is causing damp and mould The HAs get funding , the contractors get ££££ and both parties are happily safe in the knowledge that with the attitudes towards SH tenants in this country , those same tenants can be blamed for causing the damp and mould. Usually by cooking or drying clothes indoors My DM dries clothes indoors. There is no damp or mould in her privately owned property because she hasnt been forced to have it done by a housing association and contractors who see her as an income stream and want to make her home unsuited to life!

This already exists in conservation areas. Madness to universally roll it out. All utterly subjective as well. This would be so so so far down my list of priorities for local government… what a waste of time and money to manage this when we have a housing crisis, mental health crisis, environmental crisis. Personally I like a patchwork, uniformity can be oppressive and ugly in itself. ‘Variety is the very spice of life’ after all…

Whilst i think removing plants/bushes is a shame, I have neither the time nor the inclination to keep on top of the gardening. (Rented property so not my choice in reality)

But in terms of windows/doors etc, my DB lives on a new build estate. All the houses have the same door, same windows, same bricks, same front garden/ fence. It's fucking boring. Feels like a prison camp when I walk around it. I much prefer my row of terraces with loads of different colours on the doors. There's much more 'personality' here IMO.

I don't like the uniform look, neither do a lot of people I know. We have a lot of new builds round here and people talk about how boring it is that all the houses look the same.

OP, did you fall straight out of the 50s?

Most of the housing stock in the UK is old and not fit for modern living. It has to be adapted for people to live in modern times and not like a black and white movie harking back to impractical times of old.

The only way to get around it is to knock down old housing and build new to keep up with the times.

I would ban garage conversions. They always look awful and create horrible long, skinny rooms.

Whilst I get what you’re saying.. priorities. It’s all part and parcel of the same issue. Just general lowering of standards / expectations / race to the bottom.

And you might say that’s rubbish. But it’s really not. Generally growing up in a nice area/ being in a nice looking area - makes an area nicer.

Have a tree/ greenery outside a hospital window and you’re going to heal quicker and need less pain relief. Have a tree/ greenery outside your child’s bedroom window and they will get better grades at school. Have a tree/ greenery outside your shop/ restaurant/ business and you’re going to make many more sales. I could go on.