When people move in some number from a neighbourhood or community because they believe it is no longer a desirable place to live, what they leave behind is a social residue of less enabled people. This is called Residualisation.

The social balance of the area is thus disturbed by the departures and the people who remain are faced with concentrated poverty together with strengthening social stigmatisation. Before the 1950s, the council housing have been dominated by a mixture of skilled manual workers and lower middle class families. Empty houses, overgrown gardens and rampant vandalism contribute to the further decline of the area. Home vacated by leavers hold no attraction other than to people who cannot access accommodation elsewhere. Peace meal demolition of empty property merely signals a general lack of confidence and an absence of regenerative strategy by authorities. Blighted estates then provide temptation to council housing departments as places to ‘dump’ socially inadequate individuals or families, a policy of short sighted convenience which serves only to worsen the situation. Residents of long standing who opted for home ownership under the Right to Buy (RTB) scheme feel cheated as their investment for future is eroded.

Social residualisation is economically inefficient. Not only are the services underutilised, the structural fabric is subjected to frequent damage. The relative cost of community management soars and inward investment prospects are gravely affected. Last of all, residualisation produces a feeling of segregated entrapment as well as a disabling loss of personal esteem among remaining residents socially, spiritually and emotionally, who become less inclined to take part in the national economy.

High flats were introduced to England and Scotland after war as a prominent component to modern architectural patterns of housing. “LCC architects had rejected older flat types; such as 4/5 storey tenements or block dwellings of the street block layout.” The driving forces of these modern mass housing were larger cities with housing problems since 1919. This solution, adopted for land crisis of the exploitation of piecemeal sites with high flats, was imposed on particular towns. The Central government have assisted in setting the ‘land trap’, the building of high flats in existing urban areas, rather than overspill outside those areas to maintain output.

In Scotland, the overcrowding and slum problem rapidly worsening. Entire areas of tenements were in decline, leading to the eventual breakdown of factoring and maintenance. New housing was dominated by vast council schemes, catering for middle class and working class, both skilled and unskilled.

Though there was a success in the house building program, they had to face the issue of maintenance. There needed to be a way to allow landlords to increase rent in order to finance investment in maintenance. Therefore, in 1950s, landlords were able to increase rents according to the quality of housing conditions, leading policy makers to recognize that decontrol of rents were to stimulate investment of maintenance in existing homes, accompanied with the relaunch slum clearance that gave local authorities power to carry out work necessary to make housing habitable or acquire properties.

However, rent decontrol led to the burden of housing subsidies, as low private sector rents held down local authority rents, leading the burden of housing subsidies. Ensuingly, the government had to lift rent decontrol in the private sector, developing a more economically coherent rent policy for the public sector and a shift in construction from subsidized council to unsubsidized private enterprise.

By 1953, the post-war labour government did little to assist new houses for the lower incomes as there was an overwhelming number of working class tenure in the council estates. However, people with middle income in council estates were a mixed blessing; Despite helping avoid social polarization, they occupied subsidized housing that were not needed, depriving poorer and more needy families. Council housing was something to prized then; houses were affordable and attractive to better-off workers.

There was a high demand of council flats. The proportion of high rise blocks began to increase as slum clearance estates filled with high density, high rise flats, constructed in non-traditional ways. Local Authorities were urged to concentrate on slum clearance and the housing of the poor resulting in smalll and unattractive houses.

1954 introduced the Housing Repairs. Rent act had a new definition of unfitness; it required the government to estimate the number of remaining slums and plans for removing them. There were a large number of unfit houses identified. As people in slums are mainly the low-incomes, they’re satisfied with their miserable environment and extrovert social life.

During the mid-1950s, the rent policy was changed to make council housing more expensive for the higher incomes and affordable for the lower incomes. This was implemented having the rent setting based on the value of the house, in relation to current wage levels. This meant reducing subsidies awarded by government which had an outraged response from local authorities.

By the mid-1950s, there were many houses that had been built at very low prices from the past, which meant low debt charges. These cheap houses continued to attract Exchequer subsidy which brought forth low rents. However, widening the difference of rents did not reflect differences in quality. The benefits of the subsidy were to be withdrawn from older cheap houses and to be used for newer higher-cost houses. This gave the local authorities a chance to raise the rents in new buildings. When the rent act was introduced in 1957, it was originally to provide assistance to the low incomes. It was to raise decontrolled rents above those charged for similar council houses.

Come 1960s, owner occupation was growing faster than expected. The supply of rented housing was not meeting demands. This was due to the effects of full employment and rising living standards. As incomes increase, more of these needs should be met by private enterprising. Council houses were occupied by people who became better off since buying the council flat, instead of those who really need them. Thus, the government aims to secure more houses available for rent, only dealing with those whose needs are not met by the market. This act drove the affluent workers out of council housing and into the market. Housing investment increased in the early 1960s and completions of new council housing rose in 1962.

In many ways, the 1960s proved to be a good decade for the welfare state. The labour government began by abolishing prescription charges, raising pensions, reform of mean as-tested social security and the launch of polytechnics and open university. However, capabilities of the labour party were questioned due to the lack of progress on issues such as poverty.

They rapidly abandoned some commitments made on housing policies while in opposition. In 1965, Crossman provided a solution called the 'fair rent' tenancy, where rent was set in relation to the size, quality and location of dwelling. This led to moderated market rents allowing prices to move in line with inflation and incomes. However, this depended heavily on the rate of applicants, resulting in a slow spread.

The government pressed local authorities to adopt non-traditional factory based methods and urged them to adopt higher space and heating standards. This potent mix of ambitious output rate, untried building techniques, higher dwelling standards and tight cost constrains led to poor quality, badly designed houses.

During the post-war period of the 1960s to the 1970s, there was need for abetter housing policy because of the massive changes made to the housing situation in Britain. The transformation of housing conditions and quality was partly due to a major shift in patterns of ownership. The private rented sector had been wedged between two growing sectors; owner-occupation and council housing. By the end of the 1970s, housing policy was marked by lack of choice. Lower income Households found their choices extremely restricted should they fall outside the priority categories for local authority housing.

When Margaret Thatcher became Britain’s prime minister from the Conservative Party in 1979, the Right to Buy (RTB) Scheme was introduced. This enabled council tenants to choose their tenure due to variety within the owner-occupied market because of the owner-occupied market and current low interest rate.

The purpose of the RTB was to benefit the middle-income dwellers that had paid rent for a long period, but reaped no returns from it. They are dominated by two age cohorts; a very elderly set of households who have been tenants for a long period of time, and a very young age group who have a relatively short period in council housing. This phenomenon has been referred to as the hollowing out of the age structure of the council housing sector and forms part of the process of residualisation. At the same time, the tax relief advantages associated with homeownership have been reduced, especially with the phasing out of mortgage interest tax relief. It is evident that affordability problems have become much more prominent over the last two decades. The growth of employment and of two earner households meant that the assumptions about affordability are no longer well-founded. Households which include single adult households and childless couples who have traditionally been more dependent on the private rented sector with a low income and perhaps depended on a single earner or households with interrupted earnings or incomes find great difficulty in owning a property. Households with children including lone parent households are likely to find it very difficult to afford accommodation for their family circumstances in the private sector. The expansion of the privately rented sector and the portability of housing benefit mean that these households are more likely to change address frequently.

When RTB was introduced, problems of low demand were not anticipated and the agenda around modernisation and renewal was non-existent. But since then, parts of the market in all tenures no longer meet the immediate needs of households. The low demand RTB properties have been affected by the general malaise in the market. Fragmentation of ownership may affect the capacity to respond to the problems that are emerging and more radical proposals related to renewal and demolition.

The debate about council estates in recent years has included concerns about concentrations of deprivation and social mix. The decline of the privately rented sector which had played the major role in housing lower income groups meant that council housing increasingly took on the role previously played by the private rented sector. At the same time, the encouragement of homeownership drew away more affluent groups from the council housing sector. Thus, there was a greater concentration of lower income households in the council housing sector by the 1980s. There was also rise in unemployment in the 1980s, which led to changes in household structures added to the residualisation of council housing and social rented housing. Because of the characteristics of those who had bought, the population remaining in council housing was more likely to be elderly and benefit-dependent. “More popular and respectable estates had higher levels of RTB sales and retained the mix of population, whereas less popular estates had a lower rate of sale under the RTB and the relative unattractiveness of these estates meant that they were more associated with households with less choice.”

Consequently, council tenants who could afford were more likely to move on than buy or stay as a tenant. Newer, younger, benefit-dependent tenants were disproportionately concentrated into these estates – making them more characterised by low income and less mixed in terms of age and length of residence as well as economic and household characteristics. Households buying under the RTB were not likely to have moved on; they were living on attractive estates and were at a stage in their family career where they were less likely to move. Furthermore, new tenants moving to these attractive estates were more likely to decide to stay there for the rest of their lives. But these are the estates where there were fewest sales under the RTB. In these ways the RTB clearly contributed to the residualisation of council housing. The more deprived estates, because they have little tenure mix, house a higher proportion of new tenants from homeless households and those with least choice on council waiting lists. One good example of a deprived estate would be the Red Road Flats in Glasgow.

During the 1960s, there was new hope as construction begins on the tallest residential buildings in Europe. For most of the early residents, living in the flats meant a considerable and welcome rise in their living conditions. The Red Road flats were indicated as the solution to the housing crisis at that time in Glasgow. As depression set in by the mid-1970s, the estate gained a reputation for antisocial crime. It stokes a nerve in the perceptions of non-residents, owing partly to the ‘looming’ ambience of the blocks. Measures were introduced in the 1980s which gave residents increased protection, leading to the fall of the level of crime. The Red Road Flats changed dramatically in 2003 when the flats were transferred to the newly created Glasgow Housing Association(GHA). Soon the new landlords, as well as the council insisted that repairs were costing more than receipts in rent, and that big changes therefore had to be made. In 2005 Glasgow Housing Association announced its intentions to demolish one of the tallest blocks as part of a regeneration plan for the area.

Today, we have to live with the consequences of the virtual elimination of housing for rent from the private landlords. “The existence of large unresponsive council empires with their bureaucratic system of allocating houses with massive misspent investments in system built flats and multi-storey blocks; Some with serious structural faults as to render them inhabitable and some undesirable and extremely expensive to maintain, to repair or to demolish. These factors are the progressive polarization of society into two groups, council house tenants and owner occupiers, often segregated by the planners into their own separate quarters of our towns and cities and by the politicians because of their competing economic interest and their supposed political affiliations.”

The building of more housing has been a common policy for government. However neither has clearly expressed an aim in itself except that of immediate electoral appeal. Neither has shown sufficient consideration for the preferences of those who would ultimately live in the houses so created by the government. All in all, it is simply the inevitable nature of politics!