

Sheffield City Council has for the last few years been pursuing a policy of aggressively addressing what they call housing overcapacity by demolishing 1,000 council homes a year (Guardian, 19.01.05) This has been at the time of a building boom in the private sector, seeing the construction of thousands of new private home and apartments, particularly in the city centre.

Obviously what they are concerned with is not housing overcapacity in general, but what they regard as too much social housing.  This despite twenty years of sharp contraction since Thatcher stopped investing in council housing and began selling it off under right to buy.  At the beginning of the 1980s there were over 95,000 council houses in Sheffield, which was heralded as an achievement rather than regarded as a problem.  Today there are around 45,000 left, due to right to buy and demolition.

The council now proclaims as an achievement that it sees housing demand exceed supply for the first time in many years (Gdn, 19.01.05).  The housing department has taken on a new function: having once been charged with housing the homeless, it has become concerned instead with creating them.  This has been in order to give a boost to the housing market, which, following Thatcher, New Labour sees as the key to prosperity. Joanne Rooney, housing manager, said in January that she is proud that a house fetching 80,000 18 months ago is now worth 160,000.  She may be right that this is in part her achievement, assisted by her departments aggressive demolition of often perfectly good council homes.

If Joanne has children she must be confident that they will be able to afford 160,000 for a home. On her salary she would be able to give them a down-payment.  For the rest of us, our children will priced out of the market and queuing up for rented accommodation, and for many the only affordable option will be social housing  the cheapest of which has always been council housing.  In 1998-2005, the active housing waiting list in Sheffield rose from 16,506 to 27,000 (figures supplied by Sheffield Council).  So while they knocked down 1,000 houses a year, claiming oversupply, the numbers seeking a council house were rising by around 1,500 a year (see figures below  the active waiting list is the real figure, many on the suspended waiting list are not actually seeking a home).

In Burngreave there has been much demolition of Council housing:  some around the Catherine Road/ Ellesmere Road area, and of course the entire Woodside Estate.  Now that this land is cleared the question is how much of it will be used to provide ordinary people with houses that they can afford.  Woodside was set on the slope of a hill with commanding views across the city centre and across to the Peak District beyond.  It is a short walk from the city centre and almost adjacent to large developments of private flats along the River Don.  It is prime development land. 

Also within the borders of Burngreave ward is Shirecliffe, where around 700 1930s built popular homes were demolished despite huge popular opposition on the estate.  Again many of these had breathtaking views across the Don Valley.

1m of New Deal money was used to pay for the demolition and regeneration of Woodside.  Is this regeneration simply going to involve the social cleansing of poor people from valuable land?  What we hear so far is that there is going to be a mix of social and private housing.  This is not good enough.

People in the Burngreave community need to demand that this council land be used for houses that Burngreave people will be able to afford.  Our land must not be handed to private developers to make a profit when local people see their children growing up with nowhere to live.


Number on Rehousing list by type: March 1998
GeneralTransferTotalActive 10,5595,94716,506Suspended43,76616,28660,052Total54,32522,23376,558

Number on Rehousing list by type: March 1999
GeneralTransferTotalActive10,6225,80516,427Suspended38,98714,45253,439Total49,60920,25769,866

Number on Rehousing list by type: March 2000
GeneralTransferTotalActive10,3795,23615,673Suspended44,25715,00259,237Total54,63620,23874,874

Number on Rehousing list by type: March 2001
GeneralTransferTotalActive8,9985,30314,301Suspended39,52012,86852,388Total48,51818,17166,689

Number on Rehousing list by type: March 2002
GeneralTransferTotalActive12,2287,91320,101Suspended37,62312,26549,888Total49,99120,07869.989
Number on Rehousing list by type: March 2003
GeneralTransferTotalActive16,6738,77925,452Suspended24,7708,42933,199Total41,44317,20858,651
Housing Register Details

Number on Rehousing Register

March 04March 05Active 3222127000Suspended2777044891Total6099171891