Cliches of 2011 #2

"You've GOT to own your own home".

This particularly simplistic cliche' shuns a series of complications.

For instance, in an ever unpredictable job market, what happens if your only hope of dodging the dole queue means moving from place to place?

Or, what do you do if you don't do your homework properly and you find yourself saddled with a structurally unsound home or with the family from hell living next door? If you were renting, you'd just tell the landlord and pack your bags. But if you bought it and don't have the extra dosh to sort it out, then you may be up shit creek. If not for the rest of your life, definitely for an awful long time.

But the most unpalatable truth is the one related to finances.

Of course, it's all very nice to own a house if you have the funds, but Britain's the place where an alarming number of people have fallen for the spell of "getting on the property ladder" and the illusion of "asset ownership" no matter how barely they can afford it.

The last 15 years have seen a ridicuous number of tv programmes turning home ownership into the nation's biggest fetish: Property Ladder, Location Location Location, Grand Designs, Homes Under the Hammer, One Year to Pay Off Your Mortgage, and god knows how many others. They all had one thing in common however: the notion that, yes, you too can own a house and point at it while hugging your smiling partner- that's what makes you a happy family. The ultimate dream. The be all and end all of existence.

One thing, however, is never mentioned: the simple fact that it's not your asset and it will not be until the final instalment thirty-plus years from now.

You can be paying back your mortgage religiously over decades, each and every month, easily in excess of hundreds of thousands of pounds of hard-earned cash. But if something goes tits up (i.e. you lose your job), that all goes down the drain and so does "your asset" - which means your home gets repossessed.

Did you know that in the last three years alone in excess of 120,000 families were kicked out of their "own assets" (details here, here and here)? Remember 120,000 is the number of homes repossessed, meaning that the average number of people affected since 2007, children included, may be knocking on half a million.

It's a national tragedy, but one that the media rarely talks about, perhaps because of its supremely depressing nature. Or, perhaps, because it may highlight the unpleasant story that lies behind the most inflated and speculative "industry" in the country, one where average house prices didn't double or triple, but quadrupled (QUADRUPLED), between 1995 and the pre-recession peaks of 2007.

Other cliches:
"Not everyone is obsessed with...";
"Why can't Britain cope with snow?...";
"Society benefits from extreme wealth at the top";
"There are jobs out there if you really want one";
"The Royal Family brings in tourism revenue";
"Iain Duncan Smith is a kind and honourable man".

"Weekly grocery bill of £420"?

The rising number of repossessions is the forgotten issue of the pre-election campaign.

In a different world, this incredibly insightful piece of research by the housing and homelessness charity Shelter would be front page news.

Referring to 1971 as a starting date, Shelter discovered that if food and other essential items had gone up as fast as the average property price, a box of washing powder would now cost £28-53, a jar of coffee over £20 and a pint of milk £2-43.

Would you put up with that? Well, we certainly did with house prices.

Unaffordable housing has been one of the most neglected issues of the pre-election campaign.

The news is full of stuff like Nick Clegg wanting to join salsa classes with David Cameron rather than Gordon Brown. But in the meantime, homes cost way more than they ever did in history and the paradox is that if prices don't keep ballooning, "financial experts" call it a tragedy.

Yet, the impact of inflated property prices has proven devastating.

There were 40,000 properties repossessed in 2008. Last year, the official number went up to 46,000 -an average of 126 repossessions a day. That's around 200,000 people going through a heartbreaking ordeal of not knowing where they're going to sleep the next day and where they're going to put their things.

However, the figures don't even show the full picture. Like some analysts noted, anti-downturn measures such as the Mortgage Pre-action Protocol have merely deferred the inevitable, meaning that repossessions that weren't allowed to take place in 2009 will anyway within a year or so.

More importantly, no-one has taken into account the dodgy 'Sale and Rent Back' schemes, which the Financial Services Authority (FSA) only recently regulated. Their significance added an extra 25,000 lost homes to the 2009 figures (read more here).

Two months ago, it was revealed that around one million people had to rely on credit cards to help cover their mortgage or rent in 2009.

1 million affordable homes

The long-term benefits of public intervention in the housing sector.

Most people are aware that waiting lists for council homes have hit an all-time high. Trouble is, courtesy of industrial-scale tabloid bombardment, most people would probably blame immigration and single mothers.

The reality, however, is different.

Here's the facts. It is true that the queues are dramatic. The crisis brought a massive increase in repossessions (65,000 homes this year and 45,000 in 2008). At the start of 2009, 200,000 extra families (not people, families), were added to already long queues: 1,8 million families are waiting their turn as opposed to 1.6m in 2008.

Yet how many people are aware that there are one million fewer homes available for rent from councils and housing associations than in 1979?

Read that again: one million fewer affordable homes than twenty years ago. And don't forget that, compared to 1979, today the UK is home to an extra 4.5m people, which can only highlight the urgency of the issue, especially as construction in the private sector has also ground to a halt.

Earlier this year, it emerged that in Scotland there are fewer council houses for rent now than there were 50 years ago (see here for details).

This is why today UNISON launched a report "urging the government to remove all legal and financial barriers to council house-building", calling for 1 million council homes to be built in the lifetime of the next Parliament.

The benefits are obvious. Along with a new generation of high-standard sustainable homes (learning from the recent past mistakes of estates built 'on the cheap', both in the private and public sector) and the chance to replan and regenerate entire areas according to local needs, the programme would benefit the wider economy. Think of all the jobs and training opportunities that would be created and the impulse it would give to the supply chain.

Yes, it would be a massive public investment, but it's one that would bring both long-term benefits and be definitely in the interest of the wider public.

According to UNISON general secretary Dave Prentis, council housing "can also help to prevent another housing and debt bubble by providing more affordable homes".

Repossessions: the quiet National Emergency

At best this is the ugly footnote of Britain's news reports: 13,000 families had their homes repossessed in the first three months of 2009. But you won't hear about it.

Some people are of the opinion that the recent MPs' expenses scandal is a nice distraction from real problems. It isn't. It's a belated public acknowledgement of Westminster's sheer arrogance and contempt for the public - and that applies to all mainstream parties.

And though the scandal also meant official validation for the they're-all-the-same doctrine which defined political apathy in the last decade, it was refreshing to see that it fended off competition from Jordan and Peter Andre's split to seize the front pages.

There is, however, one serious scandal that is being kept conveniently quiet. About 13,000 families had their homes repossessed in the first three months of 2009, 50% more than in the first quarter of last year. That is tens of thousands of people - without counting the rising hordes of tenants who face homelessness because their landlord has defaulted on mortgage payments.

According to the coalition formed by Shelter, Citizens Advice, Crisis and the Chartered Institute of Housing (CIH), there is "a steep increase" in the number of tenants are being thrown out onto the street without notice. Literally. You can hardly imagine how appalling this would feel if it happened to you. Losing your dwelling before your eyes is one of the things that scar people for life, yet this dramatic worsening of the situation is largely being ignored.

Look at BBC News website, for instance. The report is there and it's quite detailed, but it's tucked away in the Business section.

Ask around. How many people are aware of this emergency? Compare it with the numbers who will be able to tell you the name of the guy presenting this year's Eurovision.

Nobody likes to switch the telly on and hear about depressing stories, but the fact that - in 2009's Britain - thousands of extra families each month are forced to look for a hostel needs to become part of the national consciousness and quick. Then, and only then, the Parliament may become aware that it's not just the banks that need bailing out.

Credit Crunch: The Directors Cut

The economy has been running on an illusion of money for years. Subsidised by debt – the good old never never – capitalism's central ethos – growth, more, More, MORE! - has stretched from the unlikely into the impossible. By Mark Reed.

Money is a cruel and unforgiving mistress. In these times of economic terrorism, though, everyone is talking about the current circumstances as a 'credit crunch'.

This is the work of spin doctors, and liars. There is NO credit crunch. No recession. What society is facing now, is that we are reaping what they have sown. They? There's always a 'Them'. But make no mistakes about this, society is currently victim of cruel financial instruments. Words such as 'fractional reserve banking' are more powerful in our lives than blasphemy.

What there is is a credit hangover.
Banks became drunk on money, and we were their date rape victims. They plied us with free booze all night, and now we have the headache. It was a rare week I didn't find a cheque addressed to me for £4,000 or a credit card with £7,000 sent to me unprompted, just waiting for me to spend spend spend. If I took up every offer, I'm fairly sure I could've borrowed £100,000 in a couple of years on an income a mere fraction of that. (Those letters have dried up recently. I wonder why).

In the olden days, geed on by obscene bonuses and outrageous targets, redundant bankers would buy houses because they didn't know what else to buy. Routinely, in the mega-bonus culture, these overpaid investors would buy houses and rent them back to the poor to ensure a steady income. Paying for houses in cash meant that, for the rich, a £260,000 flat would cost them £260,000. For the affluent poor – that is, those lucky enough to get a mortgage – that flat would, including interest cost £520,000 over a quarter century.

That £260,000 flat (probably bought at half the cost years ago), would ensure a relatively steady income of say £80000 per annum for life at a £100k-ish investment years ago. Of course, I see a conflict of interest here. It served the interests of the bankers to push house prices up, in many ways, and the underlying problem that society now faces is fucking outrageous house prices that are slowly being corrected. Because first and foremost, when house prices go up, that steals money directly from the rest of the economy. The money doesn't disappear, but is moved from the incomes of the many (businesses and individuals) into the channels of the few: the Super-Rich.

The proportion of income directed to maintaining something as fundamentally basic as somewhere to sleep leapt up. Where mortgage payments took 50% of two peoples post-tax incomes were commonplace. The other 50% had to go on everything else. Food, water, air, travel, clothes, mad ex-wives/husbands, you name it. And, of course, student debt. The average student – as of a few years ago – would graduate with an average of £30,000 in debt. Society is now geared to seeing debt as not only a legitimate lifestyle chocie, but mandatory if you want a degree or a home. The stigma of debt became marginal. After all, if it cost £30,000 to get a degree, when it came to a mortgage, the fraction of debt – an extra £10-20-30k – was inconsequential. Everyone needs somewhere to live. Why not pay a little more for somewhere you own instead of a little less for somewhere you will never own?

The economy has been running on an illusion of money for years. Subsidised by debt – the good old never never – capitalism's central ethos – growth, more, More, MORE! - has stretched from the unlikely into the impossible. The money never existed, and was all on a promise that they never thought might actually be kept. Even the Bank Of England are printing money now. Crazy, unrestricted, greedy loans and unrealistic targets made banks soft. Banking institution employees are often targeted with making a certain amount of profit per day. That is, selling a loan with a profit margin of a certain amount on it. Take your big bankers and your mortgage suppliers, and they have to make a certain amount of money to remain employed.

The easiest way to remain employed is to target the basic human need: a home. Justified and incentivised by enormous bonuses, the banks became soft. They became stupid, and lax. They relaxed guidelines for a 3.5 factor on mortgages to enable people to borrow up to six times their income. And not only did they allow a six-figure growth, they also commeneced 'self-certificated' mortgages.

A 'self-certificated' mortgage is where you tell someone how much you earn, and they don't check it: they just believe you. To extrapolate it out, let's take some simple maths. Now, this grossly exaggerates the numbers, but it is only a matter of scale, not ratio. For example, let's say I want to borrow £1,000,000 to buy a property. If the bank operates on a six-multiple, I need to earn around £178,000 at minimum to get that mortgage. Let's say my income is £100,000, but it has an impressive title. “Finance Director for Blah Blah Blah Dot Com”. That could earn £180,000. But I still earn £100,000. And I think that in five years I will earn £180,000. Let's gamble on the future. So, I self-certificate. I say I earn £180,000. And I promise myself that I'll just pay – say – 70% of my disposable income to the mortgage. That still gives me a couple of grand a month to live on, and a million pound house. These two factors mean that due to lax financials and careless application, I got a mortgage for ten times my income.

Banks didn't just do this for the big hitters. They did it for people on miniscule incomes. Under the 'right to buy' scheme, for example, American Social Housing Tenants took out mortgages for amounts they couldn't afford thinking they could afford it (due to 'trickledown economics', everyone thinks they'll be earning more money in future). They got their mortgage, the banker hit his target and got his bonus, and everyone was happy. Until people couldn't pay anymore.

And so Gordon Brown is extremely fucking clear on it, it is not 100% mortgages that are the problem. If they hadn't introduced a 100% mortgage, people on £40,000 a year would – in all probability – not have been able to get a mortgage on a £160,000 home, as they would have to save – say at 10% - £16,000.

So banks pushed up house prices by relaxing lending, easing controls, and lending high multiples. It didn't increase sales or the amount of homes available (though now there are dozens of abandoned, unfinished land developments and skeleton housing estates across the country). Not only that, but people in arrears find themselves homeless.

Due to the complex and fractional nature of reserve banking, a mortgage may be with Joe Bloggs Mortgages, but that mortgage has been sold by Southern Dock to Jimmy Twizters Investments. If you default, the bank can't simply recalculate the best way to keep the money. The Investment firm may simply kneejerk 'take the house'. The property is then resold at an auction for say £120,000 instead or the mortgage total of £360,000 (due to the loss of value in house pices, and also the loss of interest generated income). So a family lost their home, and the house sold for say half of what they paid for it.

Now, what if say, the family were to offer the bank the average auction price of the home, and the family don't get made homeless? Given the marginalised nature of shareholders, it would be impossible, and impractical to gain consent to revalue the moribund mortgage and enusre a family to keep their house. So you're homeless, someone else bought your dream home for less than you were offering to pay for it, and well... you're still homeless.

In one article, I read how a family said they felt bad for buying a repo auction home and thus 'benefiting' from the misfortune of others. The misfortune is not that the family could afford a house in a repossession auction, but that a family lost their home due to being financially abused by greedy bankers chasing bonuses. They made stupid decisions, lent money on 'self certificated' incomes, and a storm of circumstances made the house prices absolutely fucking crazy. Staff were incentivised to hit targets and took irresponsible risks. Everyone and their dog found themselves pelted with letters by banks granting instant credit limits, and encouraged to spend spend spend. And those who were responsible and able to control this didn't. They failed their responsibilities and have brought ruin on the nation and the lives of millions.

It is not 100% mortgages that destroyed the economy. It was when a normal two-up two-down terraced house in London cost £400,000 that destroyed the economy. The economy was built on an illusion of money that simply didn't and never would exist except as an invented figure on a balance sheet. After a while, a LONG while, it became apparent that someone telling lies would be caught out. This is where we are.

Gordon Brown found £500,000,000,000 to bail out the banks. Comic Relief raised £60,000,000 for the starving and dying of Africa. Imagine, if you will, thirty solid years of Comic Relief. Every night until 2038. Thats how long Comic Relief would have to run, were it Bankers Relief.

Gordon should not have rewarded failure, incompetence, greed and recklessness. Their imaginary bonus-driven economy has rained a flood of misery on us all. The banks gambled on our futures, and when they lost, we lost.

"Ten ideas for Labour"

Wealth tax, electoral reform, green cars, public housing and much more. Can Labour be rescued?

There is an interesting debate on the Guardian online. Several writers and columnists are putting forward ideas and concepts that, if taken on board, would probably reverse the current opinion polls. As it stands, all recent surveys suggest the Labour party is way past its sell-by date and fresh ideas are sorely needed.

Some of the suggestions from the Guardian writers come from the same hymnsheet as this blog. You get John Harris proposing a "wealth tax", Polly Toynbee arguing in favour of electoral reform (as she calls the FPTP "derelict", right on!), and Jonathan Freedland calling for the ID card scheme to be scrapped "and the money spent on a 'Manhattan Project' to develop the world's greenest car". In favour of a massive public housing programme there is Seumas Milne.

You can read it all here.

Social housing: the return?

If the government's building programme goes ahead, then they need to steer clear of the pokey and overpriced 'urban splash' dens of the binge years.

The Government announced "the biggest building programme since the 1950s". At last a good and practical thing to do and for the benefit of the many. As the number of repossessions skyrockets and the money available to buy new properties dwindles, investing money in social housing now is the logical thing to do. According to Gordon Brown, this would also "rescue the construction industry and help to kick-start the economy".

One of the many gifts left by Margaret Thatcher was the assassination of social housing. That contributed to the deterioration of the existing council homes and the beginning of the general perception that council estates=shitholes.

Also, if you wondered why all those new overpriced apartments are so microscopic, the answer lies in a Tory law from 1980 which abolished the so-called Parker Morris Standards. Set in the 1960s, those space standards became a milestone in housing provision, as they aimed at improving living standards and avoiding people living in cupboards. They stated a mandatory minimum liveable space and basic planning principles. Until 'the market' became the new idol, and the last drop of profit squeezed from basic human need.

If you simply look around, the result is that the greatest majority of today's cool and flashy (and mostly repossessed) apartments would not meet the standards from fifty years ago.

"New homes in England are being built smaller than almost anywhere else in Europe", a BBC report said last September. So, Gordon: how about reintroducing space standards now?

Why the Council tax is so unfair

If local rates can be so low in other EU countries, why not in Britain? And why is the UK the only country with fortnightly rubbish collections?

New year, new rise in the awful Council tax. The government is trying to sell its 3.5% increase in 2009 with the notion that, until two years ago, Council tax surges would consistently be three or four times the inflation rate - up to a staggering 15% a dollop. For next year, the Local Government Association promised that "councils were doing their best to hold down tax increases at a time of economic hardship".

Yet sticking up for Britain's appalling local taxation system is nigh-on impossible. For a while, in the wake of the 2005 elections, it even looked like the Scrap The Council Tax movement was going to succeed. Arguments like the Council tax rising "by 121% since 1993 against inflation of 36% over the same period" seemed unassailable. The Labour government offered a review, but then, when no-one looked, it decided it wouldn't happen until the next elections.

The Council tax remains one of the greatest scandals of today's Britain. One of the most obvious question is: if it can be so low in other European countries (we'll come back to that), why does it have to be so massive in Britain? This year, average 'Band D' residents in Dudley, in the West Midlands, are forking out £88 a month. When you tell non-Brits about the UK Council tax rates, the general reaction is them thinking that you're being melodramatic or are telling a porkypie. Or perhaps they wonder if British cities get streets paved with gold in return.

However, as we all know, most local authorities don't even do weekly rubbish collections anymore. For most, now it is once a fortnight. The government said it's the best way to encourage recycling. Most would be of the opinion that pests would be encouraged too. The people in charge of Britain denied it, but never explained why.

Since the days of Charles Kennedy, the Liberal Democrats have been consistently the only party calling for an overhaul of the Council tax system. Rightly, they point at:

a) its regressive nature. The Council tax does not reflect a person's ability to pay. You may have a retired steelworker who bought a former council flat in a certain part of town. His rate is likely to be an extortionate one, certainly not in line with his pension. Such a crap system ensures that people on a low/middle income pay a disproportionate amount to their local authorities. The old Axe the Tax campaign pointed out that most people pay more Council tax than the Prime Minister.

b) unlike in most other EU countries (Germany's Nebenkosten an exception), in the UK it is tenants who are burdened with the Council tax. Now, you'd have thought that generally, landowners are wealthier than someone who can't afford to buy a house. Yet if your landlord's loaded and you're simply renting, you are the one who's got to pay for the Council tax on his property. In France, Spain and Italy, the general trend is that landlords are liable for tax on their own property.

One issue, however, is often overlooked. The fact that, on average, local authority tax is significantly lower in most EU countries. I studied the system in Spain (IBI), France (taxe d'habitation and taxe fonciere) and Italy (ICI). Of course rates vary considerably, but overall there is no contest. In each of those countries the local tax is seriously a fraction of the grand and more most people have to fork out in the UK.

This is the most puzzling point. In each of those countries, the local tax goes to finance local police and fire services, public transport subsidies, social housing, street cleaning, various council activities as well as rubbish collection.

But in Spain, for instance, they collect your waste twice a day, and the recycling system is miles ahead of its UK counterpart, with daily collections of recyclable material from wheely bins at, literally, each street corner. In Italy, according to the area, collections vary from daily to twice a week, and that's without including the pick-up of reusable waste.

The questions most expats routinely ask is: along with sky-rocketing utility bills, why is the UK Council tax so high and why do residents get so little in return? Is it to do with greedy councils? Or does inefficiency play a part? Or is there some other magical justification the government or its supporters may be able to come up with?

Birmingham's relentless bulldozing work

How many more clone-Shopping Malls before the city is declared "FULLY REGENERATED"?

As this website is called Hagley Road to Ladywood, it's about time we review the ongoing changes in one of the most significant areas of inner city Birmingham. The intersection called Five Ways, in particular, is already looking unrecognisable.

First off, it looks like the powers that be have declared war to any type of 1960's architecture, whether that may be 'concrete jungle' like Lee Bank's recently blown down tower blocks, or outstanding gems like John Madin's Birmingham Post & Mail or the award-winning Chamber of Commerce just off Five Ways. Yet, it's worth a scratch on the head or two when Stephenson Tower, or other buildings that wouldn't have gone amiss in Soviet-era Kazakhstan, is still standing right in the middle of town.

Another question that your average Brummie may ask is: how many shopping mall-hotel-(extortionate) battery apartment-parking space combos does a city centre need exactly? Aside from the universally celebrated Mailbox and Bullring, at the turn of the century the fancily named Broadway Plaza was built, providing central Birmingham with more of the usual food chains and hastily assembled prefab apartments half the size but ten times the price of post-war council flats. However, at least Broadway Plaza provided a disused area with some character. Not to mention a state-of-the-art bowling alley that is second to none.

Then, the other day, the 1960s Edgbaston Shopping Centre was knocked down. It's quite baffling when people talk about dilapidated buildings that had to go and they don't realise the same buildings were deliberately left to rot for years with an eye on the clock and the other on the wrecking ball. Simply put, if you neglect them, they're bound to look crap. The old shopping centre is now going to be replaced by the £110m Edgbaston Galleries project. According to the developers, the 424,500 sq ft is "the largest regeneration project of a principal gateway to Birmingham", featuring "foodstore, retail and leisure space, Grade A offices, hotel accomodation and 800 car parking spaces". Just across the road, two modernist buildings, Donne and Nettleton towers have recently made way for the construction of the new Calthorpe House. But the next one to bite the dust is going to be the 1960s-era Five Ways Shopping Centre.

As tenants were required to vacate the building a while back, you'll hear more talks of "another derelict eyesore" that needs clearing out. Those of you who cherish fond memories of the old XLs rock club will be familiar with the imposing white-clad construction and its internal, circular courtyard that was home to a number of independent shops and cafes. Admittedly, it was hardly the Trevi Fountain. However, that's going to go too (the 60s centre, not the Trevi Fountain). And guess what's going to be stuck there instead? A £100m, 1.25 acre site comprising a 28-storey tower and more "luxury apartments, hotels, shopping-mall, restaurants and cafes". The new Five Ways Shopping Centre. As "regeneration" is the token word here, I presume it may be legitimate to wonder how many branches of Boots the chemist, Subway sandwiches or other clone town shops Birmingham can host in a square mile before initial excitement gives way to dust on the shelves and everything-must-go sales.

More to the point, is there really such a major demand for three shopping mall-hotel-(extortionate) battery apartment-parking space combos, especially when they're literally going to face one another? Just to recap, Five Ways island alone will feature Five Ways Shopping Centre, Edgbaston Galleries, Broadway Plaza. And, lest we forget, a few steps down the road there's the new Edgbaston Mill (on the site of the old BBC Pebble Mill landmark). Apart from the commercial sustainability and the clonetown implication of so many shopping malls, there are the recent reports alleging that the Birmingham city centre property market may have begun its slowdown phase.

Apartments have been built in their tens of thousands in just a few years, perhaps exceeding demand. As detractors of 1960s "concrete jungle" are keen to point out, people prefer houses. That was one of the reasons why the brutalist monsters of post-war architecture were being blown down like pins down a bowling alley. But the contradiction becomes apparent when the replacement is just more of the same, or even more brutalistic (just to get an idea take a look around those anonymous, humongous ones near the Mailbox). They may have fancy names and a splatter of colourful paint, but have you peeped at the price? And, more importantly, have you looked inside?

Two years ago, in an interview on the subject, Birmingham's architectural legend John Madin criticised "a lack of comprehensive plan to how the city should evolve over the years". At Hagley Road to Ladywood, we beg to disagree. The plan is clear alright. Closing theme: Pink Floyd, Money.

*COPYRIGHT NOTE: The photo at the top (Edgbaston Shopping Centre in the run up to demolition) is by Flickr user feltip1982. If you feel there was any inaccurate crediting, please contact us and we'll be happy to rectify.

So in my bedroom from those ugly new houses

Those samey city-living apartments are sprawling everywhere.

During my time in London I remember asking the clichè question: how can people afford it?

Have a walk around. It makes you wonder who's ever gonna be able to repay those mortgages in full before they snuff it. Which explains why adults past 35 still rent and share as if perma-studentdom was to last forever. Or how about those city-living apartments that are sprawling everywhere, in each single town centre, from Cardiff to Birmingham, from Sheffield to Brighton. Monstrosities closer to hives than they are to human dwellings.

Until recently the consensus was that never again the fiasco of post-war social housing was to be repeated. Those high-rise blocks -the script reads out- had been the hard way of learning how you don’t do urban planning. Ugly, alienating, anonymous. But at least the post-war social housing drive was a positive one. It was the government taking on board the task of allowing everybody modern and affordable living in some shape or form. The UK had taken on the noble task of mammoth slum-clearance. And modernist post-war housing was seen as the quickest, most affordable and most effective solution.

But now? What’s all this? At the turn of the 21st century you cannot believe the rate at which humongous apartment blocks are mushrooming throughout the UK. Housing it may be, but this time it’s no social we’re talking about. No cheap, affordable, “homes for heroes”. They are all invariably high-rent, glossy, “city-living”, “south-side”, “west-side”, “urban- splash” dens. Not even that glossy, to tell you the truth. But certainly re-mortageable, if you don't fancy repossession.

I’m sitting outside a bar in Hurst Street, on a rare April sunny afternoon, sipping rose wine, what else. The building opposite us must have been assembled in less than five minutes. Lego for giants. For a second I express bewilderment. I didn’t know the new A&E department was being built in Hurst Street. Not quite.

A pink banner sheds some light “City Living- Show Room- Southside”. “Enjoy life at the heart of the business district”. You really should take a look at the building. Had it been a guessing game, chances are the A&E speculation would have been followed by a) school, b) prison, c) police HQ. Scratch beneath the surface of extortionate prices and…but that's another story.