Council housing

Council flats and houses are built and owned by the local council. After the Second World War, a lot of high-rise council flats were constructed. Tower blocks could be 20 storeys high. Some blocks of flats were so badly built that they had to be pulled down only thirty years later.

Modern council housing estates are built differently now. There might be a mixture of two-storey terraced houses, together with a four-storey block of flats. There are play areas for children, and there is often a community centre, where people who live on the estate can meet.

Since the 1980s, council tenants have been able to buy their own homes very cheaply if they have lived in them for over two years. By 1993, 1,5 million council houses had been sold, but only a few thousand new council houses or flats are built every year. This means that it is now very difficult to find cheap housing for rent - a real problem for the poor and unemployed.

Michael Vaughan-Rees, Geraldine Sweeney, Picot Cassidy: In Britain. 21st Century Edition, Cornelsen Verlag, 2000, page 33