Safe as Houses

Stuart Hodkinson is Associate Professor in Critical Urban Geography at the University of Leeds

'A timely and important book, exposing how private profit and reckless privatisation have caused unspeakable tragedies to social housing in this country.'David Lammy MP'Essential reading for anyone wanting to understand the outsourcing - for which read privatisation - of social housing over the last 30 years. Hodkinson explains how this, above all, is the root cause of the Grenfell Fire and exposes how it is just the tip of the iceberg of what is happening to housing in the UK.'Anna Minton, Reader in Architecture at the University of East London and author of Big Capital: Who is London for?'Including both previously undocumented details of PFI in housing, and the voices of residents whose health and well-being have been impacted by the process, this book sets out a crucial part of the story of housing privatisation in the uk. This is a hugely important and powerful book, essential reading for scholars, campaigners, policy makers, or anyone with an interest in housing provision.'Pilgrim Tucker, community organiser and campaigner who supported the Grenfell Tower Residents campaign, the Grenfell Action Group'Stuart Hodkinson’s book offers a searing exposé of the policy choices which made Grenfell ‘a disaster foretold’. Combining forensic detail and righteous anger, he describes the multi-faceted attack on public housing and its ethos which underlay this man-made tragedy – privatisation and reliance on a profit-driven private sector, deregulation, and the marginalisation of tenants’ voices and interests. Closely-argued analysis of three PFI schemes – ‘outsourcing on steroids’ in his words – further demonstrates the destructive dynamics of this larger story. Hodkinson concludes with a powerful demand to empower residents, restore regulation and revive public housing. A close reading of this must-read book make it hard to disagree.'John Boughton, author of Municipal Dreams:The Rise and Fall of Council Housing‘This is an intricately researched, powerfully written, dramatic and sometimes painful analysis of how private interests have denatured social housing, always tethered to the experiences of the people who live in it. It’s a brilliant, insightful and very human study.’ Zoe Williams, the Guardian journalist'The failings which he exposes are mundane and yet shocking. Anyone who has experienced the disruption and harm of a leak, or the inconvenience of delayed repairs can connect viscerally to these stories of neglect.'Ollie Norman, The London Society

• List of boxes, figures and tablesAcknowledgementsList of abbreviationsIntroduction: Grenfell and the return of ‘social murder’1 Privatisation and the death of public housing2 Outsourcing on steroids: regeneration meets the Private Finance Initiative3 Partners for improvement? Corporate vandalism in Islington and Camden4 Not fit for purpose: the Myatts Field North PFI horror show5 The accountability vacuum6 Follow the money: who profits and how7 After Grenfell: safe and secure homes for allAppendix 1 List of formal interviews cited in book