Something about these tall towers worries me.
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It is the resemblance to a picture of brand new blocks in a Scottish council housing scheme from the 1960s… shiny new blocks set against a summer sky.
Yet the picture was not a promotional one – it was in a book about children’s play written by one of Britain’s best-known landscape architects, Marjory Allen, Lady Allen of Hurtwood.
The foreground of the picture was of desolate wasteground. Behind, like some awful dystopian vision, the photo was filled from left to right with around 10 enormous blocks, part-built, resembling skeletons. The blocks seemed to merge with each other.
The caption below was brief “A kind of psychological pollution. New housing, Glasgow”.
Elsewhere in her book, Lady Allen mentions the likly human toll for those living in these huge and tall developments, which were social experiments. Most have failed, except where rich people live in them.
Lady Allen must have been a woman of immense determination allied with diplomacy, a mid-20th Century example of the pioneering women who set up so many charities and campaigns that have improved our world.
Many of those Glasgow blocks have been demolished now – they were going to knock down one of the blocks as part of the opening ceremony when the city hosted the Commonwealth Games nearly 10 years ago, until the organisers thought better of it because of the public outcry about the tacky tastelessness of the entire stunt.
How many years do we give these new Croydon tower blocks? Most have just small flats – less homes, and more human storage areas.
They might last 20 years in good condition, then there might be another 20 years in decline, and maybe another 20 years before demolition.
The notion that people might actually buy any of these properties fills me with dread: can you imagine having to pay for new windows at 40 storeys above ground? Or the costs of new lifts?
Thankfully, given the state of Croydon’s finances, there seems little possibility that a desperate council might buy any of them to house people in them.
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- Coulsdon resident Lewis White spent his career as a landscape architect, working for local authorities elsewhere in south London.
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