Call for return to terraced streets could be music to demolition ears.
The housing crisis, crime and social alienation could all be tackled with the demolition of high-rise social housing blocks, a think tank report says.
They should then be replaced them with real streets made up of low rise flats and terraced homes, Policy Exchange said.
There are 140,000 households – 100,000 of which are social tenants – in England with children who live on the second floor or above, according to its report.
Some 260,000 new and better quality homes could be built in London alone over the next seven years by knocking down the unpopular, ugly, high-rise tower blocks and estates of the ’50s and ’60s that
encourage crime and social alienation, says the Create Streets report.
Multiple studies show terraced streets can exceed the housing densities (between 75 and 200 units/hectare) of most existing high-rise housing developments, it states.
The existing planning system means major cities have built high density and high rise, box sized flats, the smallest in Europe and smaller than ever before in the UK.
The report’s author Nicholas Boys Smith said: “Between 2003 and 2007, there was a seven-fold increase in high-rise building even though social housing tower blocks are extremely expensive to build and maintain. It’s time we ripped down the mistakes of the past and started building proper streets where people want to live,” said Mr Boys Smith.
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