29-07-2003 22:39									#1
	Britain's Council Estates, A Solution? Avatar Enlargement: We've got the solution

Is there even one? Are they effectively becoming day-release prisons for their occupants? And is this what their occupants deserve anyway?

The bus I catch from Bolton goes through one of the worst five council estates in Salford, the metropolis of Kenyon Way and Madams Wood. A couple of miles of utter social desolation.

quote: A town has become a no-go zone for buses, leaving vulnerable people to face a dangerous walk home. The First bus company has suspended all its services through Little Hulton, Salford, after 6pm because of a wave of vandal attacks. Angry residents say "anarchy" by a minority of hooligans has caused major disruption to scores of law-abiding people. Gangs of youths have smashed windows of buses with passengers on board. Most attacks have happened in the Madams Wood Road and Kenyon Way areas. The First company said they were left with no alternative but to divert service numbers 12, 31, 36 , 37, and 68.

Council estates never used to be this bad. When home ownership was still a dream for middle-class-aspiring families, council estates provided a home. As prosperity grew, the lower middle class purchased out some of the better (parts of) council estates, partially funded by the government, and left the rest to sink. No problem. Anyone else would do the same.

So what we are left with is the scum of the earth living in no-go areas, wielding rifles on buses (yes, the one I was on today), bringing on salivating pitbulls (ditto) and creating social unrest for miles around. The spiral of violence leading to poor schools, poor education and a lack of opportunity leads to more violence. Drug-taking and severe alcohol abuse are rife. Vandalism commonplace.

Of course I'd love it if we could find a couple of terrorists in these estates so America could bomb them to pieces with lots of collateral damage, but the only real solution is more and more effective policing. 3-strikes and you're out. Bring in Rudy. Enlarge our prisons system so it can take twice as much.

Next, decent apprentice systems for those that have failed education, or vice versa - as in Germany. Not everyone can work with their brains so why is the only possible advancement in this country thorugh intellectual means. Technical schools to push those 14 year olds who obviously don't want to learn into.

It will be easier to sort out Britain's mess sooner rather than later. Birth rates are much higher amongst council estate dwellers than than elsewhere (no stats yet). The problem will spread and envelop areas around it - already happening.

(Local) government investment in one area works on the micro scale. it works in that estate. But it just pushes the crap in to other estates, which then sink as well.

[/rant]

	29-07-2003 22:56									#2
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The estate I lived on in Southampton during my last year of Uni was pretty nasty. Just walking down the street was dangerous. One of mates finished the year with a metal plate in his jaw after getting beaten up.

Everybody, including the police, knew who the main trouble makers were. We reported several crimes ourselves, which perhaps contributed to the treatment we received from the locals. Or maybe it didn't, I'm ****ed if I know what they're thinking. All I know is that the police did jack ****.

The whole thing is a big mess. I have no answers.

	29-07-2003 22:59									#3
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They really do get worse, Bods.

Who're you going after next? Clowns?

	29-07-2003 23:02									#4
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FP, recognise?

	29-07-2003 23:04									#5
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I don't care if you think he's trolling Jon, or even if he is trolling... because it's true. I'm spending this week working with 300+ kids (all aged 9 and 10) largely from even worse estates and backgrounds than the one Stew describes. They all have so much energy, so much talent, so much enthusiasm... and yet 75% of them will leave school at 16 with nothing or next to nothing. That's scandalous.

	29-07-2003 23:05									#6
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I have friends and relatives currently living in council estates (and I have previously) and you're a lot closer to being 'scum of the Earth' than they are.

	29-07-2003 23:06									#7
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quote: Originally posted by red_jon I have friends and relatives currently living in council estates (and I have previously) and you're a lot closer to being 'scum of the Earth' than they are.

(Not you EIF )

	29-07-2003 23:13									#8
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quote: Originally posted by red_jon I have friends and relatives currently living in council estates (and I have previously) and you're a lot closer to being 'scum of the Earth' than they are.

As I said, a lot of decent people live on council estates -usually the better ones that the aspiring-to-be-middle-class haven't left yet. I don't know if it's a worse phenomenon up North. Even Wales is split - North Wales is a shithole, south Wales ain't too bad.

Iain, just wait till their hit pube...

	29-07-2003 23:14									#9
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We had 250+ 12 and 13 year olds last week...

	29-07-2003 23:16									#10
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quote: Originally posted by *End Is Forever* We had 250+ 12 and 13 year olds last week...

The odd thing is, the people that go to places like this aren't usually the people that really need the help.

It's no excuse for not helping them, but the main problem with this is that it is underground. I can expect half of those kids will be on the street tonight.

	30-07-2003 00:12									#11
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Ok, off the top of my head:

* Free school meals for every single school student. This will remove the stigma of getting free school meals, and will also have health benefits for all schoolkids.

* Super-strict enforcement of school uniforms. Too many neds flout school uniform policy and just wear shellsuits and baseball caps. This sets them apart from the other pupils, creating divisionary cliques. It will also make it more difficult for council estate kids to slip effortlessly between school and truancy.

* I agree with Boddingtons that encouraging apprenticeships and skilled manual crafts is a good idea. University should not be alone as the 'acceptable' choice.

* Build more stuff to do in council estates. Not pissy community centres, they run the risk of getting torched, stuff that's pretty indestructable, like skate parks and basketball courts.

* Often a single family can act as a focus for criminality and social disorder in an area. There should be tough laws that allow such families to be evicted. Where will they go? Bounce them around hostels, deport them, who cares?

* Curfews for kids on particularly violent estates.

	30-07-2003 00:17									#12
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Bulldozing.

	30-07-2003 00:18									#13
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quote: Originally posted by Sandman Ok, off the top of my head: * Free school meals for every single school student. This will remove the stigma of getting free school meals, and will also have health benefits for all schoolkids.

not if they are like school meals here

ketchup is a vegetable



Jon Miller

	30-07-2003 00:24									#14
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Jeez, school meals aren't that bad. Better than the utter garbage that they're putting into packed lunches these days. Sunny Delight or Dairylea Munchables anyone?

	30-07-2003 00:27									#15
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They are introducing a scheme into schools now where the kids get a swipe card to pay for meals, parents of kids who don't get free meals can pay money onto the card for their kids. Free meal kids get money on automatically. Has two aims, remove the free meal stigma (everyone has the same card) and reduces theft 'cause you can't steal money off someone elses card.

Something needs to be done, throwing teenagers in jail turns them into more efficient criminals with even less chance of becoming productive members of society. Don't know what the answer is but that isn't it.

	30-07-2003 00:31									#16
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Sandman

School meals - not a bad idea but there would still be divisions as some people would bring packed lunches. Schools started going downhill when the clip around the ear was barred. A teacher was punched at my high school. Tell me when then happened say pre-1980.

quote: Super-strict enforcement of school uniforms.

I think we need to start getting the kids in school to begin with don't you.

quote: I agree with Boddingtons that encouraging apprenticeships and skilled manual crafts is a good idea. University should not be alone as the 'acceptable' choice.

It's the sort of thing you'd expect someone like Brown to see as an option wouldn't you.

quote: Build more stuff to do in council estates. Not pissy community centres, they run the risk of getting torched, stuff that's pretty indestructable, like skate parks and basketball courts.

How about having curfews around the estate except for at these points. They can be policed, watched by security guards or neighbourhood watch groups could be used in some better areas. BTW my loca park had a basketball court that got trashed. Glass everywhere and no nets now.

quote: Often a single family can act as a focus for criminality and social disorder in an area. There should be tough laws that allow such families to be evicted. Where will they go? Bounce them around hostels, deport them, who cares?

No point just shunting people around if the problem is always going to be there. Get these types of families on the 3 strikes and out rule, once created.

quote: Curfews for kids on particularly violent estates.

Enforceable by? I think we need a lot larger police force than we currently have.

Otherwise we'll be going to way of the US in the 80 and early to mid 90s. I'd suggest we already are anyway in some areas. All it takes now is an even larger supply of guns and the **** will really hit it..

Gibsie

quote: Bulldozing.

Has worked to an extent in inner-city Salford. However we can't just analyse single estates. What happened to the individuals who used to live there? Are they just causing havoc elsewhere?

	30-07-2003 00:33									#17
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MikeH, do you think we've reached a point with a minority* of the population that "containment" is the only option?

* a phrased often used to describe a small amount of hooligans in an estate, but usually the problem is with the estate as a whole.

	30-07-2003 00:35									#18
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I hope not. Not sure what to do about the parents, they are the real problem. Doesn't matter what example you get set outside home if your parents are scumbags you'll most likely end up a scumbag as well!

	30-07-2003 00:38									#19
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But then I don't live in Manchester, the crap areas up there are in a different class to anything in Reading.

	30-07-2003 00:39									#20
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And it's those parents that tend to breed more as well. You know, it's odd..the outskirts of Bolton town centre look poor but not scummy. A lot of Asians live there - those families have the potential to earn a lot more, how you can tell I don't know. But you can.

The thing is, this estate (Kenyon Way/madams Wood) starts less than one mile away and I know **** all what life on it is really like. Just from judgmental pictures gained from passing through it on a bus and looking at a few individuals postures on street corners.

	30-07-2003 00:41									#21
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quote: A recent survey by the charity, the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, showed that what remains of council housing now tends to be occupied by the elderly, the unemployed, those unable to work and single parent families. Families who are slightly better off, with one or two partners working, prefer to move out and try to buy their own homes. This means it is harder to achieve balanced communities within council estates and they are becoming more and more the ghettos of the poor and disadvantaged. In turn this makes the estates even less attractive to anyone who can afford to get out. The report described the process as 'reverse gentrification". The research was led by Roger Burrows of the Centre for Housing Policy at York University. It showed that as few as 22 per cent of heads of household in social housing now have jobs and the pattern of "sink" estates is being repeated all over the country.

So true.

http://www.geocities.com/CapitolHill/2853/nw21297.htm

	30-07-2003 00:42									#22
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quote: Britain's Council Estates, A Solution?

Fire, and lots of it

	30-07-2003 00:43									#23
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quote: Originally posted by Boddington's And it's those parents that tend to breed more as well. You know, it's odd..the outskirts of Bolton town centre look poor but not scummy. A lot of Asians live there - those families have the potential to earn a lot more, how you can tell I don't know. But you can.

It's not earning potential, they've got better home lives, more moral upbringings and they care more about keepin their areas nice. They also respect the value of education.

	30-07-2003 02:02									#24
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Bod, an interesting theory on the way the middle classes have bought their way out of the council estates leaving the have not's to be drawn into compressed areas of deprivations, I agree.

I think where the country has gone wrong for so many years is the liberal attitude it takes to petty crime, i.e. these crimimals* know the law is an ass and that they can get away with crime after crime with little more than a slap on the wrist (they can't be fined as they are on benefit, have no money and steal for a living anyway - plus the government doesnt have the balls to lock them up). Also with the state of Policeing in this country they probably only get caught for 1 out of 20 offenses.

*only a small minority of the areas in question (perhaps only 1% dominate the whole area.

I think the best option is build more prisons and invoke the 3 strikes and your out system, i.e. 3rd conviction and you get a minimum sentance of 5 years (theyre still out after 3 on probabtion).

I feel so sick and sorry for those other families, pensioners etc that have no way out and are effectively prisoners in their own homes. The criminal families (Scum for short) are not decent people and you often find the criminality passed from generation to generation.

Barley.

	30-07-2003 02:31									#25
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I think Stew raises many salient points here, there is most certainly a spiral of social dereliction and no amount of justification is going to sort it out. The nature of the education system does fail some children, but I don't think this accounts for most of the problem. There is a severe issue with upbringing of children, which is passed on and is very difficult to solve. I agree with more extensive education that suits all, but I don't think this is the core of the problem. Something needs sorting out about how children are often poorly brought up...quite how this is solved I am not sure. I think better use of the penal system is required in addition. Sometimes crime does appear not to have any disincentive, we do need a better penal system which is broader and harsher in many ways, but also with a stronger emphasis on reform. I don't think it is sufficient to allow severely troublecausing 14 year olds to roam the street causing nothing but trouble. Their behaviour in society needs correcting. I think it is a shame that their anger is focussed on the wrong people. If it was used productively it could do a lot of good.

But the effectiveness of policing needs to be increased too.

	30-07-2003 03:35									#26
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Another Boddington troll. How sweet.

	30-07-2003 03:44									#27
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When I was younger we lived in a middle class suburb near Birmingham there was one house which was for sale for about 2 year till eventually they sold it to the council. The council moved in a "troublesome" family who were causing alot of problems on a council estate. Within a week the other residents had a petition to have the family moved out, within 2 months the council gave in and moved them back to the same estate they came from.

They didn't really cause any trouble while there other than doing odd things like flying a kite in the rain and climing onto the roof of the house. In many ways they had almost settled in and caused no problems, but they never stood a chance of staying there.

	30-07-2003 04:10									#28
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I don't think this is a troll.

Cambridge is fine, until you enter the Arbury Estate (though the drunk and druggies around Mill Road aren't fun either, but as they're homeless, they don't much to do with estates). Burnt cars, pikey kids in shell suits and no forehead, boarded up houses.

And that wasn't a patch on the estates around where I lived in Manchester (Longsight and Park Side (Moss Side)).

I like 3 strikes and you're out. I also like forced labor. I'd like teachers to be able to retaliate (or have people retaliate for them, sort of like school bouncers) and not be sued. I'd like people engaged in a criminal act to have no legal protection (someone tries to steal your bike? Blow him away). But then people accuse me of being an authoritarian sometimes...

	30-07-2003 07:19									#29
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quote: Bulldozing

In the USA, the things are called "housing projects" and are being dynamited by the dozen. They're being replaced by saner rowhouses much like those the projects replaced back in the 50s and 60s. Doesn't fully solve the problem, though. For one thing, rowhouses only hold about half as many people, and cost more. Projects that were built to house senior citizens have been successful though, as there aren't as many young hotheads running around.

In Taiwan, they're called "national residences" and have been relatively successful because they more or less look like any other apartment... since there's not enough land to build anything less dense. Also, the blocks cover a smaller area per project and are up against the street without parking, so the "wasteland effect" doesn't set in. Some of them do smell pretty nasty though.

	30-07-2003 12:12									#30
	Re: Britain's Council Estates, A Solution? Support Apolyton, buy Civilization 2

quote: Originally posted by Boddington's Not everyone can work with their brains so why is the only possible advancement in this country thorugh intellectual means [/rant]

And you're living proof.