Plan to break up council estates

Ghetto-like council estates are to be broken up by building new homes for first-time buyers in amongst council properties, at the same time as moving low-income tenants to streets where houses are predominantly privately owned.

The plan to mix and match private and public housing was set out yesterday in a report into the future of council housing commissioned by the Department of Communities and Local Government. Its author, Professor John Hills, called for an end to the idea that towns should be planned with "rich people on one side of the tracks and poorer people on the other side of the tracks".

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He said that the separation of council tenants from home owners was never government policy, but a gradual drift within the population has meant that almost half of all council or housing association homes are now concentrated in the poorest 20 per cent of neighbourhoods. He warned that nearly one fifth of the tenants on traditional council estates do not feel safe in their own homes, and more than a fifth are conscious of drug-users or dealers operating near by.

Professor Hills also rejected an idea that council tenants who could afford to own their own homes, or elderly tenants living alone in large properties, should be forced to move to ease the housing shortage. Instead, he called for government incentives to encourage tenants to buy their own homes.

His report was welcomed by experts in the housing field. But Adam Sampson, the chief executive of Shelter, said: "We are surprised the review makes no reference to the desperate need to increase the number of social homes being built."

Ruth Kelly, the Communities Secretary, said that the Government would build 30,000 new social homes next year.