<< Previous || Next >>

2. Tower Blocks and social housing – the key issues

2.1. 400,000 homes
Between the end of the war and the beginning of the 1990s 6,544 multi-storey blocks were built in the United Kingdom. These provided just over 400,000 high-rise homes. The real boom years for tower block building were from about 1953 to 1972. These figures are drawn from Miles Glendinning’s and Stefan Muthesius’s comprehensive account of the phenomenon: ‘Tower Block’ (1). Others (Jacobs & Manzi and Dunleavy (2,3)) use a figure of 440,000. These authors use a definition of high rise as “flats and maisonettes in blocks of six or more storeys”. In this report we do not distinguish between different types of housing complex above this size. High-rise accommodation, whether in towers or deck access, displays very similar problems and potentials.
These figures spell out the scale of high-rise housing in the UK. A considerable number of blocks have been demolished, but not on anything like the scale of the original building programme (it has been very hard, during the few weeks of research for this report, to get an agreed figure for how many have gone). If the average household size in a high-rise flat were two persons, then the original 400,000 units would house 800,000 people. This is a rough and ready figure, but it does stand as an indicator of the importance of tower blocks as homes for so many people. The fact that tower blocks tend to be concentrated in areas suffering from disadvantage within towns and cities makes them especially significant for urban renewal and social inclusion strategies.
Like any neighbourhood, no tower block is an island. Few estates ever consisted solely of tower blocks. The state of a block and the experience of its residents will be powerfully affected by the surrounding social and economic environment. In a disadvantaged neighbourhood its problems will need to be tackled in conjunction with action to strengthen the local economy, to improve health, and to redevelop local facilities. In many cases tower blocks fall within area-based regeneration initiatives. These present a range of opportunities but, if mishandled, they can cause damage as well. Good relationships and partnerships between agencies and the community are vital from the beginning of the regeneration process.
Any moves to take a fresh look at tower blocks must be done in the light of current conditions. For many years there has been insufficient financial provision for housing repairs in social housing. Financial shortages have also contributed to inadequate management, both in quality and scope. The institutional response to this has been to transfer stock to housing associations and related bodies, while for many people the response has been to move: few people who can afford alternative snow choose to live in social housing. The bottom line is that today much housing stock, both high- and low-rise, requires major refurbishment.

2.2 Homes for who?
More important than the block are the people inside it. If conditions in tower blocks are to improve, the state of the physical environment and the social qualities of the community must inch forward together. Right-to-Buy legislation and increasingly high unsubsidised rents mean that now much social housing (both high- and low-rise) is increasingly occupied by low income people on housing benefit. In most areas many such residents have other problems, including poor employment prospects, poor health, low educational attainment, drug and alcohol abuse etc.
But in the final analysis there will be no potential for sustainability unless the relationships between residents are positive. From a reasonably healthy social foundation residents have some chance of tackling their basic needs and problems, and ultimately perhaps moving on to other projects. For this reason ‘putting people first’ must be the cornerstone of making tower blocks better places to live.

2.3 Ownership
The majority of tower blocks are owned by local authorities. However, under stock transfer agreements a number are now owned or managed by housing associations, and it is very likely that this will increase markedly in the next few years. This change may pose new problems but also presents many opportunities for new approaches to redevelopment.
Under the ‘Right to Buy’ legislation some residents have bought their flats, and there are a small minority of blocks, mainly in Central London, containing a predominance of owner-occupiers. Nonetheless, the vast majority of high rise residents are tenants, paying rent to their local authority or housing association. With a small number of exceptions tower blocks cater for social housing need.

2.4 Allocations Policy
Conditions on a tower block estate will be profoundly influenced by the allocations policy, i.e. who the flats are let to. This, of course, works both ways, in that the allocations policy will itself be influenced by the state of the estate. Thus ‘allocations’ is one of the most important housing management functions to be got right. It is usually the landlord’s responsibility, but some blocks have their own tenant management organisations (TMOs) which may do the job themselves. The success of tenant or neighbourhood management may also be affected by the allocations policy.

2.5 The residents
For any tower block to work reasonably well as a community the flats need to be let to people who are content to be there. People who are housed inappropriately will naturally chafe against their circumstances. Apart from suffering themselves, they will be disinclined to make a positive input into the life of the block and will move out when they get the chance. A stable, sustainable community cannot be built where people feel negative and looking to leave.
The profile of residents in terms of their employment status also has major ramifications for the nature of the community. There may be a mix of people in work or on benefits, or, as is increasingly the case in the social housing sector, a very high preponderance of benefit-dependent households. This is likely to be the case if rent levels are relatively high, as people will not be able to afford to live there unless housing benefit pays the bill. If people can afford such rents they may well be able to move elsewhere.
For some people the problem will be the condition of the estate, and if a virtuous circle of physical and social improvements could be initiated then their dissatisfaction may change to satisfaction. But it must be recognised that there are residents for whom the problem is the tower block itself as a form of housing. This is not to say that tower blocks make bad housing, but that they make very bad housing indeed for certain types of people or families.
Tower block accommodation is not suitable for one very large section of the population – families with children. This is primarily due to the difficulty of ensuring safety from heights, and the problems of giving children easy access to safe outdoor space in which to play. A parent cannot keep watch in the same way that they could if their child were in the back garden or outside the front door of a conventional house; and allowing groups of children to bounce in and out of the building and up and down the lifts makes it more difficult to maintain security. There are other factors which make residents feel that blocks are not suitable for children – such as poor heating systems or a high level of crime – but these are not intrinsic to tower blocks.
Broadly speaking this leaves two other main types of household: young people without children, and middle-aged to elderly people without children. In general terms it is possible to make tower blocks cater successfully for these groups.
Tower blocks can be particularly popular with elderly people, providing that a high standard of security is maintained. It is their potential to provide a safe environment that makes them so attractive. Other advantages reported by older high-rise residents include a strong sense of community, social activities, town centre locations close to a range of facilities, and fantastic views. These enthusiasts saw their blocks as “a street in the sky”, or “a vertical village”.(4)
“It works when you get people who want to live there”, Lee Boland of the residents association at Trellick Tower, Kensington and Chelsea

2.6 The ‘landlords’ and the demolition or refurbishment argument
Tower Blocks are now seen by many housing authorities as problem areas, due very much to the multiplicity of problems that the towers themselves have faced (see Section 3 below). From the points above it should be clear that a housing authority seeking to address a ‘tower block problem’ should first be asking: “are we housing the right people in our blocks?”. It should identify residents whose needs genuinely cannot be met in a high rise environment and who do not want to be there, and find ways to re-house them. Equally it is clear that moving people out of blocks will not solve their underlying problems, but it may help create the opportunity to start that process. The future of the block will then depend upon whether it is viable, or can be made so, physically and socially. Blocks built using the ‘slab’ method of construction have inherent physical problems and here demolition is the only logical choice.
Demolition may also be necessary or the best option if the block is structurally unsound in other ways, or mired in such deep social problems that the best hope lies in giving the residents a new start in new (though not necessarily new-build) homes.
Refurbishment is the alternative choice, and there have been many innovative approaches to this issue. Clearing tenants from a few floors, refurbishing these and thence moving tenants progressively until the whole block is done has been one way used, while others have moved all the existing residents elsewhere, seeking to give the block itself a new start as well. The best chance of pulling making this work appears to lie in city centres and Central London, where refurbished flats could be offered for sale in a market where there is high demand from professional people without children. A different example is the Holly Street estate in Hackney, where the original intention to pull down all the blocks was reversed and it was decided to keep the Grange Court tower exclusively for older residents. The new tenants were moved in after the previous occupants had been re-housed and the block given an expensive refurbishment. It appears that the exercise has been a success (5).
It must be acknowledged that reducing the numbers of families with children in tower blocks will have a long-term bearing upon the nature of community that develops there. The implications, for service providers as well as residents, will need to be addressed. But it is also important to recognise that demolishing all the UK’s tower blocks would be a huge task, and most will be with us for a very long time to come. Finding effective ways to refurbish them must be a priority.

2.7 Geography
The prospects for tower blocks differ substantially depending on where they are in the country. The national picture of pressure on land and a need for greater numbers of homes does not ring true in every area. Parts of Scotland, the North-East and North-West have the problem in reverse, with long-term population decline as a particular problem. In such areas, where the demand for housing falls short of supply, it can be tremendously difficult to fill void flats; and landlords find it difficult to justify maintaining high-rise blocks. By contrast, many cities have a dearth of affordable rented accommodation. In this context it is important that the development of policies and solutions for the future of tower blocks be tuned to the different needs of different areas.

2.8 A way forward?
Consideration of these issues leads to the conclusion that there is a need to look afresh at how tower blocks are used. Their niche should be in catering for small households of single people, older people, and couples without children. They could also be very suitable for meeting the demand for student and young professional flat-shares. These groups are the types of household that are forecast to swell the demand for housing units over the next decade or two, and high-rise flats have a crucial role to play in containing that demand(8). If this is to be made to work then the current problems must be tackled effectively. Many, but not all, of the problems discussed below are common to all social housing: any campaign for ‘sustainable tower blocks’ must ultimately be a campaign for sustainable social housing.