The Estate—life on the front line of Britain’s housing crisis

The Estate by Charmain Bynoe

This book is a spin-off from the Channel 4 documentary Council House Britain. Ghost-written for Charmain Bynoe, a Southwark housing officer, it follows her 20-plus years in the south London council.

Bynoe offers vital support to the most vulnerable tenants, but continual cuts have decimated the service she provides. Reorganisations have removed budgets and made the job of the housing officer more fragmented, replacing personal service with “centralised management systems”. But although her tenure was during some of the most important struggles by tenants and residents, the book provides little understanding of, or even reference to, any of these highly publicised campaigns.

On Wooddene, Bynoe acknowledges that the demolition resulted in a loss of council housing, empty homes and gentrification. But there is no discussion of  the years-long campaign to save Aylesbury Estate.

Bynoe does allude to the more recent campaign by tenants in Ledbury Estate—which she renames Hanbury Estate—who fought to get the council to tell the truth about the lack of safety in the Ledbury towers. But Ledbury Action Group itself is not mentioned. Instead an unnamed “activist” from east London is blamed for creating panic amongst residents.

The account of a restructuring within the council will be familiar to many local government workers. As health and safety rep, Bynoe endured endless meetings with management, battling job cuts and fighting for members to be assimilated to new posts. The process is so brutal it ends with her going off sick with stress for four months.

The Estate will be informative for those who know little about the role of a housing officer, as well as the problems faced by tenants and residents on our estates. Bynoe’s main insights are, however, limited to a granular detail of people’s lives and how they are helped by their housing officer.

These cases reveal a common pattern of unofficial categorisation: the three Vs. The “vulnerable” are worthy of support, “villains” are to be policed and evicted, while “vexatious” tenants—those who make unfounded complaints—are to be managed and avoided. This way of thinking about tenants is the product of a system that is all about managing scarcity.

Tenants and residents should give unconditional support to housing officers and their unions fighting for better jobs and for better pay and services. Their jobs have become so much harder as fewer and fewer workers do more and more work.

Local government unions play an important role in supporting and funding tenant campaigns. This is certainly true in Southwark where both Unison and Unite have been long-standing allies of the Defend Council Housing campaign through the fights for fire safety, opposing demolition, gentrification and, crucially, stock transfer. It is a shame Bynoe does not seem to be aware of any of this.

Nevertheless, The Estate illustrates how council workers are forced to bear the burden of the housing crisis. For this reason alone, it is worth a read.