Quality | 2010.01.26
'You're stigmatised if you live on a council estate'
The Aylesbury estate in Elephant and Castle, south-east London, is being regenerated – but its problems are not as bad as media reports suggest, residents say
The Aylesbury estate, whose concrete towers, playgrounds and walkways sprawl across 28 hectares (70 acres) of south-east London, has assumed a dual role over the five decades of its existence. Not only is it home to nearly 10,000 people, it also serves a monolithic reminder of the problems of social housing.
Hours after winning the 1997 election, Tony Blair rushed to the estate to promise its 7,500 "forgotten people" that they would be among those New Labour would remember as it tackled social exclusion.
But over the next few years the Aylesbury became journalistic shorthand for inner-city crime, squalor and deprivation, with the Daily Mail describing a walk around its precincts as "like visiting hell\'s waiting room".
The Mail\'s description is not popular with Southwark council – whose £2.4bn regeneration programme was accepted by the government at the end of last year – nor with all the estate\'s residents.
Jean Bartlett, who manages the Tykes Corner parents\' and toddlers\' group, which sits in the heart of the Aylesbury, accepted there were problems on the estate, but said the press and public focused only on the negative side of social housing. "The trouble is that you\'re stigmatised if you live on a council estate, but me and the other residents are trying to take that stigma away," she said. "The reason this estate is being redone is the condition of the properties. They\'re past their sell-by date – you only have to look at them."
But Bartlett, who has lived on the estate for 34 years, said the Aylesbury was not plagued by the kind of inequality laid out in the Hills report.
"Both my girls have left the estate, have qualifications and own their own properties," she said. "I got my qualifications when I was 50 and there were opportunities for me to do it. If you\'re willing to do it, it\'s there."
The estate\'s reputation, she said, was worse than its reality. "We find it unfair that the media always come here and think we\'re so bloody deprived. We\'re not. Money has been ploughed into the estate though the New Deal and Sure Start. We\'re not the only ones."
Leighann Melsom, who stood in the doorway of her flat, keeping an eye on her baby son, was similarly phlegmatic.
"I think the gap has widened," she said. "But life can be a struggle and I\'m not so hard done by." But the 26-year-old did feel the government could do more for her and her family. "I\'ve been quite lucky with work, but they don\'t help you much with childcare," she said. "I don\'t want my son to be brought up here, to be truthful."
Isha Samurum, who was taking her daughter, aged two and a half, to a friend\'s, was firmer in her views. "I have no choice but to live here," she said. "There\'s a big gap between the rich people and the poor people and I think the government isn\'t doing enough – they need to improve the whole estate."
Samurum, who works in catering at Kings College and has lived on the Aylesbury for five years, was equally blunt about her daughter\'s future. "She will have to fight hard. If she doesn\'t, she won\'t get anything."
For more information, please visit
http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2010/j[...]esbury-estate-london-residents
