‘Difficult-to-Let’, ‘Difficult-to-Live-in’, and Sometimes ‘Difficult-to-Get-out-of’: An Essay on the Provision of Council Housing, with Special Reference to Killingworth

Abstract

We are presently facing a new phenomenon on the British urban scene—public housing only a decade or so old is being vacated and demolished. Such estates are ‘difficult-to-let’ from a management perspective but are more simply ‘difficult-to-live-in’ from a tenant perspective. For some tenants, transfer procedures mean that they are also ‘difficult-to-get-out-of’ estates. The problem is illustrated by means of Killingworth council housing. It is concluded that present management procedures cannot cater for the differential demand generated by the present variety in council housing. This leads to consideration of the total council sector—easy-to-let as well as difficult-to-let estates—and a socially just allocation and transfer procedure is derived.