Originally Posted by
Ged
Very cynical Mr McGurk.
It is true that sometimes it's 'some' of the people. It is also true that sometimes, Council policy lets the tenants down.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liverpo...ouncil_v_Irwin
However, the Cornish fishing village which was the Radcliffe Estate was badly thought out and planned. Rats runs, no emergency vehicle access, your car parked in a communal area hundreds of yards away etc. The Easby and Grizedale estates were not dissimilar but more livable but even these have only lasted 40 years which is 10 years or so less than the walk up tenements, not all of which were ghettos.
I think going back to street plans with garden houses has been a success in a lot of areas.
Sometimes I get cynicism and irony mixed up.
I didn't mean to say that people are a problem. I meant to say that not taking (all different types of) people into account is a problem.
Some people cannot look after themselves. It's not their fault. And they don't deserve to be lumped together in a wholly inappropriate architectural/planning experiment to satisfy council's obligations under the Housing Acts.
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The Radcliffe Estate was clearly unfit for purpose for the people who were to use it. It might have made a great student Halls of Residence (who have fewer cars and a more communal and transient lifestyle) or maybe those who did use it actually didn't have so many cars anyway. Then maybe nothing wrong with the architecture - just used in the wrong way.
Incidentally, and again it wouldn't suit everyone but if we spent as much time and money and management effort on affordable housing as we do on student accommodation and particularly student campus accommodation, I think certain sections of society would be a lot better off.
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Nevertheless... Lord Denning found in favour of the council; arguing that council had only an obligation to exercise reasonable care - which they did. In fact Council did everything it could in the circumstances in the teeth of some pretty outrageous louts in the area (it says). In fact, Denning says:
"[Council] have been beaten by the vandals and hooligans. [Council] were not in breach of their duty to use reasonable care."
This was also backed up in the House of Lords even though it also went on to say:
"Some people might think that it would have been, on balance, wrong for the council to adopt such an attitude, but no one could possibly describe such an attitude as irrational or perverse."
[because of the actions of vandals, the huge liability that council would have accepted for us all and the very tight financial constraints within which council had to work]
So much for the law. But it does support the idea that council (ie., we) shouldn't have to keep paying to fix things for as long as people are prepared to kick seven bells out of them
.
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