Societies – The Great Housing Direction Change

Ferndene Housing by Peter Deakins with Clifford Wearden was one of two prototypes for the new Keith Joseph initiative, thge other being Housing at Hatfield by Peter Phippen

In the early 1960’s Keith (later Sir Keith) Joseph put in place legislation that was quite remarkable in many ways, ways that in fact have never been replicated. The more orthodox element related to ‘providing housing for young middle-class people who it was felt had been neglected (presumably because so much housing had been provided in previous years for poorer people) and secondly that the whole organisation of the provision could be carried out using partly government money by co-operative and/or professional groups. With additional money being provided by Building Societies (of which there were then quite a lot) upon which residents made mortgage payments, the scheme was very succesful for many years and in fact the basis of most current ‘affordable’ housing operates in much the same way. Subsidised Housing now hardly exists, particularly after so much of it was sold to individual residents.