116-508: Seacroft is an outer-city suburb/township consisting mainly of council estate housing covering an extensive area of east Leeds , West Yorkshire , England. It lies in the LS14 Leeds postcode area , around 4 miles (6.4 km) east of Leeds city centre . It sits in the Killingbeck & Seacroft ward of Leeds City Council and Leeds East parliamentary constituency . The population of
232-456: A listed building , the hall was demolished in the 1950s. The original entrance lodge still stands on York Road, with Parklands School on South Parkway now occupying the location of the hall. There is one shop in the area that was originally Seacroft Village, a small village off licence, which has been built since the building of the estate. Seacroft Grange was built in 1627 for the Tottie family and
348-493: A Grade II* listed building in Hale . A large cluster of the company's hotels are located in and around Manchester. Soon after its foundation, Britannia began making a number of further acquisitions. The second purchase in 1981 was a derelict listed building in central Manchester (the former Watts Warehouse standing on Portland Street ). After redeveloping the unit it opened in May 1982 as
464-483: A Labour politician, passionately believed that council houses should be provided for all, while the Conservative politician Harold Macmillan saw council housing "as a stepping stone to home ownership". The Conservative government of Margaret Thatcher introduced Right to Buy in 1979, with the millionth council house being sold within seven years. In time, the transfer of public housing stock to private ownership reached
580-615: A bypass around East Leeds' suburbs. The project started in summer 2018 and is set to build a new 7.5-kilometre (4.7 mi) route linking the orbital Ring Road (A6120) at Red Hall to the A58 , the A64 and Leeds Road to connect with Thorpe Park at Junction 46 of the M1 , set to be complete by summer 2023 with enhancement finished by autumn 2023. The East Leeds Orbital Route is the biggest infrastructure project undertaken by Leeds City Council for fifty years, since
696-699: A deck and by 1975, and they were declared unsuitable for families with children, the elderly and the disabled. In 1975, 96.3% of the residents wanted to leave. 643 families petitioned to be rehoused. They were demolished between 1991 and 1994. Proportion of houses and flats built by local authorities and New Towns in England and Wales, 1960–80 (a) Notes: (a) Tenders approved. (b) Including maisonettes. While some tower blocks have been demolished, many that occupy convenient city centre sites (such as The Sentinels in Birmingham, Trellick Tower and Great Arthur House on
812-761: A fire broke out in one of the rooms in the Royal Albion Hotel, Brighton reducing most of the Grade II building to a shell. It was made worse by the high winds over the weekend which made fighting the fire challenging. This left the façade unstable, requiring most of the exterior to be demolished. As of February 2024 , Britannia Hotels operate 64 hotels, all in Great Britain: Britannia Hotels has been subject to widespread criticism on many issues, most notably in hygiene and maintenance. In October 2023, consumer group Which? declared Britannia Hotels to be
928-420: A growing desire by many towns and cities to retain population (and thus rental income and local rates) within their own boundaries (rather than "export" people to New Towns and "out of boundary" peripheral estates) led to this model being adopted; abandoned inner-city areas were demolished, and estates of high-rise apartments blocks proliferated on vacant sites. Whole working class communities were scattered, and
1044-657: A hospital/nursing home into a hotel and Britannia took over the development from the builders who went bankrupt. In 1988 the company purchased and began development of the International Hotel adjacent to Canary Wharf in London's Docklands. The hotel opened on 9 June 1992. A year later, Britannia took over a 187-bedroom hotel in Stockport . After a period of refurbishment, the Britannia Stockport Hotel opened in 1993. In
1160-492: A housing association, in 2004; this represented the second largest stock transfer in British history. Housing rented from the council accounted for about 28% of the district and around 40% of the actual city of Wakefield. Many districts of the country have less than 10% of housing rented from the council; the national average stood at 14%. On 16 May 1968, the problems associated with tower blocks were brought into sharp focus after
1276-544: A large mezzanine level, which was built a few years after the Tesco store had opened to give more space within the store). The car park was also enlarged and other shop units were built along the side of the supermarket, making the centre a crescent shape. The huge supermarket as well as the other shops promised to create hundreds more jobs then would be lost through the loss of trade in the Civic Centre, which among other factors made
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#17330845285401392-820: A large percentage of Edwardian and late Victorian private houses. A number of types of system building used in flats have serious flaws. They were initially very popular with tenants due to their generous space standards, and with councillors and housing officials due to their speed of construction – but have suffered problems, especially poor protection from damp and weather ingress, as well as other design defects and poor management. Also, studies such as Family and Kinship in East London found that people moving to such estates lost their old social networks and failed to develop new ones. As noted by one study: "There was, however, one way in which slum clearance rather than enhancing housing standards actually threatened to reduce them:
1508-658: A new impetus, when the poor physical health and condition of many urban recruits to the army was noted with alarm. This led to a campaign under the slogan "Homes fit for heroes". In 1919, the Government first required councils to provide housing, built to the Tudor Walters standards, under the Housing, Town Planning, &c. Act 1919 (Addison Act), helping them to do so through the provision of subsidies. London County Council embraced these freedoms and planned eight 'cottage estates' in
1624-747: A number of Britannia Hotels. The website commended most of the reviewed locations for their proximity to city centres or public transport hubs and efforts to renovate some rooms in the Manchester location, but raised concerns about outdated interiors, inconsistent maintenance, and Wi-Fi access fees, the latter generally considered inappropriate in a country where internet access is a major part of daily life. The Home Office temporarily rented rooms in three Britannia locations (two in Bournemouth , one in Folkestone ) to house asylum seekers because of overcrowding at
1740-409: A poor reputation across Leeds. A large portion of the housing is council owned, and the few jobs tend to be low paid casual or manual work. Many of the houses, particularly prefabricated housing around South Parkway have been boarded up and are unfit for any future habitation. This is due to a multimillion-pound city re-development scheme whose earlier progress can be seen in the similar estates around
1856-469: A selective uptake, with middle-aged and married skilled workers with mature children being the most likely to purchase their homes. In effect, those in extreme poverty did not have the option to avail the offer, exacerbating the social and economic inequalities prevalent in the sector. Furthermore, the price of private increased due to the rent deregulation policies that were implemented simultaneously. This made it increasingly difficult for those excluded from
1972-556: A shift in their focus from providing affordable homes to generating returns for investors. Financialization also led to an increase in buy-to-let mortgages, resulting in higher private tenancy levels and rising costs. The design and character of a council estate is related to the government initiative that allowed it to be built. The estates of the Addison Act are mixed tenure estates with generously proportioned semi-detached houses designed to be fit for heroes, albeit only affordable by
2088-630: A student drowned in the Adelphi's swimming pool in 2006. In November 2015, the Liverpool Echo investigated a guest's complaints about the Adelphi. Further issues with the Adelphi have been reported since. The Liverpool Echo visited the company's headquarters in June 2019 to interview a spokesperson about the complaints, but no-one would speak to the journalists. In 2013 in Canterbury Crown Court ,
2204-412: A variety of styles of architecture. The area surrounding the green has many old buildings, dating back to the 18th century and before. The estate also shows a variety of different styles employed by Leeds City Council for the duration of the estate's construction. The earlier houses dating back to the 1950s are red brick traditional terraces and semis. In the late 1960s and 1970s prefabricated housing
2320-660: Is a British budget hotel group with 64 hotels in Great Britain. The company also owns the Pontins Holiday Parks. Since 2010 Britannia Hotels has been a subject of criticism over the hygiene and maintenance of its locations; consumer group Which? repeatedly found the chain to be the worst in the United Kingdom since October 2013. The criticism has contributed towards the growing general perception of Britannia Hotels as "Britain's worst hotel chain". Britannia Hotels
2436-525: Is a table from Leeds Observatory, detailing crime from 2018 ward in LS14 from March 2020 to February 2021. Seacroft bus station was rebuilt as part of the Seacroft Green Shopping Centre and has five drive-in-reverse-out stands. Buses go from here to Leeds City Centre and to other neighbouring areas of the city such as Cross Gates , Gipton and Whinmoor as well as Wetherby. First Leeds runs
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#17330845285402552-505: Is also known as Tottie Hall . It is a grade II listed building, along with its service buildings. Although the English Heritage record says it was rebuilt in 1837 other sources record the building as original, noting that in 1837 the new tenant John Wilson renamed it to Seacroft Grange and set his coat of arms over the door. The building included a celebrated late 17th century staircase thought to have been brought from Austhorpe Hall . It
2668-536: Is in Cross Gates . The 1960s also saw the construction of the Seacroft Civic Centre, which was at the time a novel way of building an outdoor purpose built town centre. The Civic Centre had a Grandways supermarket and a Woolworths Group as well as many other smaller shops, banks, pubs and a library. In the 1990s it had become apparent that the condition of the Civic Centre had deteriorated significantly in
2784-472: Is not being built to replace it and waiting lists for social housing have become very long, up to 18 years. Over a million people are on the social housing waiting list and a quarter of people on social housing waiting lists have been there for 5 years or more. The number of social homes is at a record low, over 100,000 households were on council waiting lists for over 10 years. Council houses sold under right to buy are typically sold at half market value, some of
2900-467: Is now part of Seacroft Grange Care Village. See also The Seacroft Village Preservation Society. There is an old non-operating windmill, that pre-dates the estate, which has been incorporated into a hotel (now known as the Britannia Hotel Leeds). The village developed slowly over the centuries and saw very little change until the post-war years. Work on the estate began in the 1950s. Many of
3016-570: Is of a fairly standard design for a large supermarket and purpose-built shops. There are also many high-rise blocks of flats around the estate, mainly near the Shopping Centre, towards the bottom of South Parkway and Beechwood Avenue, around the Ramshead area and in the Bogart Hill area. Starting in 2018, many new houses are being built on the eastern end of South Parkway. Religious buildings include
3132-524: Is the word found today in modern Welsh as coed ("woodland"). The second element, added after Brittonic ceased to be understood in the region is the English word wood , making the name tautological in meaning. Seacroft was at one time a small village between Leeds and York . The village green , known as "The Green" still exists, and is one of the oldest in the country. It has the Cricketers Arms pub on
3248-806: The Basingstoke Country Hotel acquired from the Hotel Collection and the Trecarn Hotel Torquay and Cavendish Hotel in Eastbourne . In 2016, Britannia Hotels also purchased The Bromsgrove Hotel & Spa which had been owned and operated by Hilton . Later in 2017, Britannia Hotels acquired the Royal Hotel in Hull from the Mercure Hotel Group, expanding to 53 hotels. In 2008 as part of
3364-570: The Britannia Adelphi were investigated by the BBC over theft and hygiene. In November 2014, an undercover investigation by the Liverpool Echo found issues with the upkeep of both the exterior and interior of the Adelphi, warning that the ageing interiors and basic service placed Britannia Hotels at a disadvantage in the fast-evolving "cut-throat" tourism industry. In 2019, Which? journalists found
3480-819: The Golden Lane Estate in London) remain extremely popular with residents and have even been subject to an element of gentrification , caused by the onward sale of leases purchased by original tenants under the right to buy scheme to more affluent purchasers. In 1988, the Conservative government of Margaret Thatcher set up the first of six housing action trusts designed to regenerate some of Britain's most deprived council housing areas, which involved refurbishment or demolition of council properties in these areas, as well as improved community facilities and scope for new private and social housing developments. The North Hull HAT
3596-574: The Housing of the Working Classes Act 1890 ( 53 & 54 Vict. c. 70), which encouraged the London authority to improve the housing in their areas. It also gave them the power to acquire land and to build tenements and houses (cottages). As a consequence, London County Council opened the Boundary Estate in 1900, a 'block dwelling estate' of tenements in Tower Hamlets . The Housing of
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3712-475: The coronavirus pandemic : on 19 March, the Coylumbridge Aviemore Hotel sacked and evicted approximately 30 staff who lived in the hotel without notice or redundancy pay, leaving several homeless. Britannia Hotels later reversed the decision under widespread political and public pressure, but claimed that the sackings were due to an "administrative error". Staff were also dismissed and evicted at
3828-450: The financialization of housing in the UK has contributed to issues in the public housing sector. Under the wider neoliberal agenda, the deregulation of mortgage finance and the liberalisation of credit was implemented, creating systemic risks as 'sub-prime borrowers ' bought homes with loans they could not realistically pay back. In the U.K, financialization became increasingly prominent after
3944-591: The 10th century, to provide a place of residence for "poor, old and distressed folk". The first recorded almshouse was founded in York by King Æthelstan ; the oldest still in existence is the Hospital of St. Cross in Winchester , dating to c. 1133. The public workhouse was the final fallback solution for the destitute. Rural poverty had been greatly increased by the inclosure acts leaving many in need of assistance. This
4060-625: The 1950s and 1960s, the number of high-rise dwellings rose significantly. In 1953, just 23% of public-sector approvals were for flats, with only 3% high-rise (defined as blocks of six stories or more). By 1966, however, high-rise housing accounted for 26% of all homes started. A National Dwelling and Housing Survey carried out in 1977 also found higher levels of housing satisfaction amongst owner occupiers than council housing tenants. The survey found that 90% of owner occupiers were "satisfied" or "very satisfied" with their accommodation and only 4% "dissatisfied" or "very dissatisfied", while for council tenants
4176-454: The 1950s, blocks of flats and three-or-four-storey blocks of maisonettes were widely built, alongside large developments of terraced housing, while the 1960s and to some degree the 1970s saw construction of many high-rise tower blocks . Flats and houses were also built in mixed estates. Council homes were built to supply uncrowded, well-built homes on secure tenancies at reasonable rents to primarily working-class people. Council housing in
4292-522: The 1950s, council house provision was shaped by the New Towns Act 1946 ( 9 & 10 Geo. 6 . c. 68) and the Town and Country Planning Act 1947 of the 1945–51 Labour government. Simultaneously, this government introduced housing legislation that removed explicit references to housing for the working class and introduced the concept of "general needs" construction (i.e., that council housing should aim to fill
4408-433: The 1990s as securitization and foreign finance were introduced in the housing sector. One of the key mechanisms of financialization was securitization, which allowed investors' mortgages to be sold as packages in the market, encouraging the imperative of profitability. Housing associations, which previously relied on government grants and private donations, could now access capital markets and sell bonds. However, this led to
4524-515: The 30 years since its construction. Talks were held with Leeds City Council , and Tesco were found as the preferred bidder to rebuild the Seacroft Civic Centre. In 1999, work began clearing the site and in 2000 the new Seacroft Green Shopping Centre opened. The Tesco supermarket was cited at the time to be the largest in Europe, a claim which may not have been true. It is, however, still an enormous supermarket spread over two levels (the second being
4640-628: The Adelphi Hotel in Liverpool, including a vertical pan shot past the lit marquee at night. In 1987 Britannia Hotels converted an unused building in Manchester that had been the city's C&A department store - this became the Sachas Hotel . Later in the same year Bosworth Hall, a country house style hotel in Market Bosworth , Leicestershire, was purchased. Bosworth Hall was being converted from
4756-646: The Britannia Hotel Manchester. At the end of 1982, British Rail sold off its hotel division, British Transport Hotels . From this sale, in 1983 Britannia bought the Britannia Adelphi Hotel in Liverpool . In the mid-1980s, Alex Langsam acquired the Grade II* listed London Road Fire Station in Manchester for the group. Proposals to redevelop it into a hotel and offices were delayed and in 2006 it
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4872-674: The Britannia Hotel in Stockport , shortly after TripAdvisor rated it as one of Britain's dirtiest hotels. In December 2014, magistrates at the Nuneaton Justice Centre fined Britannia Hotels £25,400 for food hygiene offences at the Royal Court Hotel in Coventry. In June 2017, the Adelphi was prosecuted for breaches of food safety and hygiene regulations. Britannia Hotels was prosecuted for breaking health and safety laws after
4988-548: The Britannia Lodge near Gatwick airport to be in a worse condition, reporting smells of damp because of a clogged ventilation fan, a bathroom affected by mould , and stains revealed under ultraviolet light . In the following year, Which? reported that the situation had not improved, despite the COVID-19 pandemic and the renewed interest in luxury hotels for staycations . Hotel research and booking site Oyster.com has reviewed
5104-476: The Britannia-owned Pontins holiday parks. On 24 March, Manchester City Council reported that Britannia Hotels evicted homeless people from Britannia's two city centre hotels (Britannia Manchester and Sachas Hotel), despite an agreement between Britannia and Manchester council to accommodate them. In September 2007, Manchester Crown Court fined Britannia Hotels £39,486 for food hygiene offences at
5220-1104: The Capital of Culture celebrations, a musical based on the Adelphi Hotel, written and directed by Phil Willmott, Once Upon a Time at the Adelphi , ran at the Liverpool Playhouse from 30 June until 2 August. Britannia Hotels purchased nine hotels, reaching a total of 61, between 2017 and 2021, when it acquired The Grand Hotel Gosforth Park (formerly Marriott ) in Newcastle, The Grand Hotel Sunderland (formerly Marriott), The Grand Hotel Blackpool (formerly Hilton), The Meon Valley Hotel, Golf & Country Club near Southampton, The Sprowston Manor Hotel & Country Club near Norwich, The Hollins Hall Hotel, Golf & Country Club in Baildon , Bradford, The Coylumbridge Hotel (formerly Hilton) in Aviemore and The Royal Clifton Hotel in Southport. On 15 July 2023,
5336-561: The Coal Road area. The area's poor reputation has been focused on by journalist Donal MacIntyre . Neighbouring Gipton also shares this poor reputation. 85.49% of occupied houses in Seacroft fall within the Band A council tax rate (the lowest based on house values). However, the negative image of Seacroft was challenged in 2008 by a BBC article called 'The Estate' depicting life on the estate. Below
5452-636: The Grand Metropole in Blackpool . In January 2011, the company bought North West holiday camp business Pontins out of administration in an £18.5 million deal which safeguarded about 1,000 jobs. Following the acquisition, Britannia had to deal with a series of complaints. From 2005 to 2015, the group had its most rapid period of expansion, acquiring 23 hotels, including the Palace Hotel in Buxton and
5568-544: The Labour government of Tony Blair tightened the rules (reducing the maximum discount in areas of most housing need), it did not end the right-to-buy. Labour did relax the policy forbidding reinvestment of sales proceeds. Following its election in 2015, the Conservative government has announced proposals to extend the Right to Buy to housing association tenants. Social housing is being sold off under right to buy, new social housing
5684-608: The Leeds General Infirmary and St James hospitals, considers selling off the older parts of the hospital for redevelopment. There is a small industrial estate in Seacroft on Limewood Approach. Cable and Wireless had a depot there for many years, but it closed in 2008. On the estate, Seacroft Waste Sorting Facility is based, Leeds City Council have a major depot and Transco operated a small facility until 2008. Large factories of Agfa and Unilever are situated in nearby Whinmoor . The primary schools in Seacroft are: The Bishop Young Church of England Academy opened on 1 May 2017,
5800-706: The South West of the estate. Many houses were vacated and either their condition or lack of demand dictated that the council boarded them up. The estate's high rise flats are seen as a refuge as they are harder to break into and in better condition than the houses, as such they have largely been allocated to older residents. Some (including Queensview) have become sheltered housing. Regular bus services allow residents to use amenities in Leeds city centre , Cross Gates and Wetherby . The Cross Gates Centre (formerly Arndale Centre) provides many high street shops which Seacroft lacks, while Wetherby's many pubs make it an alternative destination for evening entertainment. Seacroft has
5916-519: The UK population still lives in council housing; in 2010, about 17% of UK households. Approximately 55% of the country's social housing stock is owned by local authorities. Increasingly the stock is managed on a day-to-day basis by arms-length management organisations rather than directly by the authority, and by housing associations . Public housing became needed to provide " homes fit for heroes " in 1919, then to enable slum clearance . Standards were set to ensure high-quality homes. Aneurin Bevan ,
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#17330845285406032-438: The United Kingdom , also known as council housing or social housing , provided the majority of rented accommodation until 2011, when the number of households in private rental housing surpassed the number in social housing. Dwellings built for public or social housing use are built by or for local authorities and known as council houses . Since the 1980s non-profit housing associations became more important and subsequently
6148-421: The Working Classes Act 1900 extended these power to all local councils, which then began building tenements and houses. In 1912, Raymond Unwin published a pamphlet Nothing gained by Overcrowding . He worked on the influential Tudor Walters Report of 1918, which recommended housing in short terraces, spaced 70 feet (21 m) apart at a density of 12 per acre (30/ha). The First World War indirectly provided
6264-414: The adoption of system-building by many local authorities across the UK in the 1960s. Nonetheless, space standards in council homes (based on those prescribed by the Parker-Morris Report remained above those of many privately built dwellings at the time. The earliest council estates were built within the borough boundaries on low value land that was walking distance from the places of employment. When that
6380-524: The building by experimented prefabricated methods, of large impersonal estates of high-rise buildings, lacking many of the amenities common in similar developments on the continent." The last major push in council home provision was made under the Wilson government of 1964. The energetic Minister of Housing Richard Crossman accepted the truth that the provision rate was too slow and instructed authorities to exercise their compulsory purchase powers and construct large overspill estates. In Birmingham he forced
6496-415: The building of Castle Vale and the 15,590 dwelling Chelmsley Wood estate, Solihull . Laws restricted councils' investment in housing, preventing them subsidising it from local taxes, but more importantly, council tenants were given the Right to Buy in the Housing Act 1980 offering a discount price on their council house. Proposed as policy by Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher and carried out under
6612-501: The building was previously the David Young Community Academy (DYCA) which was founded in 2006 and closed in spring of 2017, named after David Young , a former bishop of Ripon. It is a state-funded academy sponsored by the Church of England . Leeds East Academy is a coeducational school that originated in Parkland Girls' High School (built 1954) on South Parkway. This was the last single-sex state school in Leeds before its closure. Leeds East Academy has now relocated to new buildings on
6728-410: The chain was ordered to pay £200,000 in fines and costs for putting guests and construction workers at risk of exposure to asbestos at the Grand Burstin Hotel in Folkestone. In 2021, the chain was fined £86,000 after an employee fell through rusted railings and suffered life-changing injuries at the Prince of Wales Hotel in Southport. Sefton Council also issued an improvement notice after no attempt
6844-424: The completion of the Leeds Inner Ring Road in 1974. It is intended to ease congestion in existing residential areas like Cross Gates , Seacroft and Whitkirk , and will also play a key role in the growth plans for the city for years to come. It will allow the development of the surrounding areas of the road, with the development of possible new shops, houses, and schools. Council estate Public housing in
6960-448: The corresponding Leeds City Ward was nearly 18,000 in 2001 and fell to 14,426 in 2011. The name is often used as a catch-all for Seacroft and the neighbouring areas of Whinmoor and Swarcliffe , other large east Leeds council estates which merge into each other. Seacroft includes one of the largest council estates in the country and Yorkshire's second-largest council estate, after Bransholme in Kingston upon Hull . The latter, however,
7076-495: The detention centres. The Home Office also rented rooms for new refugees who were waiting for long-term housing. In December 2018, the Britannia Royal at Kingston upon Hull cancelled a charity reservation for rough sleepers on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day without giving a reason. The incident led to a criticism against Britannia Hotels, which temporarily removed its presence from social media. In March 2020, Britannia Hotels attracted widespread condemnation for its response to
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#17330845285407192-539: The economic rent was 30/- a week but had to be let at 12/6d". The provision of local authority housing varied throughout the UK; in the period 1919–39 67% of the houses built in Scotland were in the public sector , compared to 26% in England. Source: The Addison Act provided subsidies solely to local authorities and not to private builders. Many houses were built over the next few years in 'cottage estates'. The Housing, &c. Act 1923 ( Chamberlain Act ) of 1923 stopped subsidies going to council houses but extended
7308-488: The equivalent figures were 74% and 14%, respectively. Subsequent research at the London School of Economics has tried to cast doubt on claims that only high rise developments could accommodate the population density required for these policies. The post-war governments considered the provision of as much new housing as possible to be a major part of post-war policy, and provided subsidies for local authorities to build such housing. The Conservatives competed with Labour for
7424-467: The estate in the 1950s. A stone axe dating from the Neolithic age (3500–2100 BC ) was found on Kentmere Avenue. In addition, two silver Roman coins were found on The Green in the 1850s. Seacroft village is the original part of Seacroft, around The Green and Cricketers Arms (pictured above), and is often referred to today. Seacroft Hall was built in the 17th century by the Shiletto family incorporating extensive landscaping and parkland. Despite being
7540-450: The first experience of private garden space (usually front and rear). The quality of these houses, and in particular the existence of small gardens in England and Wales, compared very favourably with social housing being built on the European continent in this period. The 1951 Conservative government began to re-direct the building programme back from "general needs" towards "welfare accommodation for low income earners" The principal focus
7656-420: The focus of an intense regeneration programme, resulting in a dramatic drop in crime on the estate. In London, many council estates are being demolished and replaced with luxury housing, resulting in a net loss of social housing . Campaigners fear almost 8,000 homes could be lost during the decade following 2018. Among estates for regeneration, over 80 will be partly or completely demolished. In recent years,
7772-457: The former Killingbeck Isolation Hospital, the hospital is accessible from the A64 York Road. It was constructed between 1893 and 1904, with a brick clock tower (also a water tower) designed by E. T. Hall under Arts and Crafts influence. Services have been moved from Seacroft Hospital to other hospitals around Leeds. Many of the buildings are in a poor state of repair. The health authority, in keeping with its policy to concentrate all services at
7888-416: The intention that these areas use many of the amenities built along with the Seacroft Estate such as the Civic Centre and Seacroft's secondary schools. As such amenities were kept to a minimum in Swarcliffe and Whinmoor, with the estates only having small local shops, public houses and primary schools. Seacroft also has the main central bus interchange for North East Leeds, although the nearest railway station
8004-451: The line of the radial roads. This marked a further movement out of the city, first by the middle classes and then the blue-collar workers, leaving just the poorest layer of society living in the urban area. The first Labour government was returned in 1924. The Housing (Financial Provisions) Act 1924 (Wheatley Act) restored subsidies to municipal housing but at a lower level, it failed to make any provision for lower paid, who were living in
8120-451: The maisonette blocks and more than 100 bungalows. Community facilities on the estate were also improved, and the main shopping centre was completely redeveloped. One of the most ambitious post-war council housing developments, the complex of estates at Broadwater Farm (shown above), became a national symbol of perceived failures in the council housing system following the Broadwater Farm riot in 1985. Since then, Broadwater Farm has been
8236-414: The majority of houses and blocks of flats were built. The council had planned for Seacroft to be a "satellite town within the city boundary" In addition to this vision, other areas surrounding Seacroft were built using the same principle. In the 1960s building work in the Swarcliffe and Stanks areas started, and in the 1970s in Whinmoor . However, none of these were as large or ambitious as Seacroft, with
8352-594: The majority of the services that serve the bus station. Their service 49 serves the Monkswood Gate area in the north of Seacroft, but not the bus station. The closest railway station is Cross Gates , with services operating to Leeds , Garforth , Bradford Interchange , Halifax , York , Hull and Scarborough . Since the 1960s, the Leeds Outer Ring Road has been considered to create a social barrier between Seacroft and Swarcliffe , which prompted calls for
8468-524: The mid-20th century included many large suburban council estates, featuring terraced and semi-detached houses, where other amenities like schools and shops were often also provided. By the late 1970s, almost a third of UK households lived in social housing. Since 1979 council housing stock has been sold to private occupiers under the Right to Buy legislation, and new social housing has mainly been developed and managed by housing associations . A substantial part of
8584-541: The money from the sale has to go to the Treasury. Councils can replace only one in three of homes sold under right to buy. The Housing Acts of 1985 and 1988 facilitated the transfer of council housing to not-for-profit housing associations. The 1988 Act redefined housing associations as non-public bodies, permitting access to private finance, which was a strong motivation for transfer as public sector borrowing had been severely constrained. These housing associations were also
8700-592: The most notable HAT was the one founded in 1993 to regenerate the Castle Vale estate in Birmingham , which had been built in the 1960s. The original master plan for the redevelopment of Castle Vale saw 17 out of 34 tower blocks on the estate earmarked for demolition, as well as 24 of the estate's 27 maisonette blocks, but by the time of the HAT's demise in 2005 all but two of the 34 tower blocks had been demolished, as well as all of
8816-494: The most prosperous workers. The generosity changed in the 1930s, with the push to eliminate the slums. Aneurin Bevan 's new towns and estates planned to the Tudor Walters standards were designed to be the pinnacle of housing to which all classes would aspire. This gradually changed through the 1950s and 1960s, partly due to the increase in private housebuilding under Harold Macmillan , as well as due to dropping standards, especially with
8932-635: The needs of a wide range of society). In particular, Aneurin Bevan , the Minister for Health and Housing , promoted a vision of new estates where "the working man, the doctor and the clergyman will live in close proximity to each other". While a number of large cities tentatively erected their first high-rise developments (e.g., Aston Cross in Birmingham , Churchill Gardens in Westminster ), in England and Wales homes were typically semi-detached or in small terraces . A three-bedroom semi-detached council house
9048-457: The north side and St James parish church (built 1845, architect T. Hellyer) on the south side. John Wesley preached on The Green, and as a result a Wesleyan Chapel ( Methodist Church) was built close by. Seacroft Green has an active residents' association . Seacroft village is mentioned in the Domesday Book (1086). Evidence of much earlier inhabitation was found during construction of
9164-588: The occurrence of such an explosion. The same year Manchester started the construction of the Hulme Crescents . Thirteen tower blocks connected by aerial walkways and the four long curving south facing blocks of flats and maisonettes connected by walkways and bridges. Five thousand homes were constructed in eight years. Three thousand of these were the deck access flats, almost immediately the constructional problems became apparent: they leaked, ducting failed and they were too expensive to heat. A child died falling from
9280-669: The older houses on the estate are more traditional red-brick semis built around the Beechwood area, to the North of the estate. In the 1960s many prefabricated houses and high-rise flats were constructed on the estate. Two main roads were built through the estate, these being North Parkway and South Parkway. North Parkway was built with a dual carriageway, in a similar way as Oak Tree Drive, Coldcotes Drive and Gipton Approach in neighbouring Gipton. In 1934, Leeds City Council bought 1,000 acres (4.0 km) for municipal housing, and after World War II
9396-793: The parish was abolished and merged with Leeds. In 1911 the parish had a population of 1695. The local newspaper for Seacroft is the Yorkshire Evening Post , thought the Wetherby News is also sold in the area (although its news coverage generally stops beyond the Shadwell and Whinmoor areas). The local BBC radio station is BBC Radio Leeds . Many other Leeds radio stations can be received, but ChapelFM deals specifically with Seacroft and surrounding areas. Neighbouring areas such as Whinmoor are often covered in Wetherby's Tempo FM . Seacroft has
9512-565: The partial collapse of Ronan Point , a system-built tower block in Newham , east London, as a consequence of a gas explosion. A similar incident caused significant damage to one side of a block in Manchester . Although these incidents were due to a series of failures (not least being the illegal connection of gas cookers by unqualified friends of tenants ), subsequently all system-built tower blocks were usually built with "all electric" heating, to prevent
9628-479: The peripheries of London: Becontree , St Helier , Downham for example; seven further followed including Bellingham . Houses were built on green field land on the peripheries of the urban area. The war had caused house building costs to rise enormously: Sir Ernest Simon reported to the Manchester Housing Committee in 1910 that "houses that had cost £250 to build pre war were then costing £1,250, so
9744-464: The point where councils had to rent back their own houses to house the homeless. Even in the stable medieval model of landowner and peasant, where estate workers lived at the landowner's whim in a tied cottage, the aged and infirm needed provision from their former employer, the church or the state. The documented history of social housing in Britain starts with almshouses , which were established from
9860-436: The policy to afford alternatives, leaving them with the least desirable residual sector of social housing. Over time, changes were made to the Right to Buy policy, especially for specific regions but overall, the policy reinforced the stigmatized position of public/social housing as a 'last resort', moving away from the previous welfare-statist ideals. The "right to buy" was popular with many former Labour voters and, although
9976-504: The popular vote over who could build more houses, abandoning Bevan's principle that numbers weren't enough – that the homes had to be spacious and well built, too. The use of system building methods was later seen as possibly being a short-sighted, false economy, as many of the later houses are in a poor state of repair or have been demolished. On many estates, older council houses, with their largely superior build quality, have outlived them – more incredibly, they have even been outlasted by
10092-404: The providers of most new public-sector housing. By 2003 36.5% of the social rented housing stock was held by housing associations. In some council areas referendums on changing ownership were won by opponents of government policy, preventing transfers to housing associations. The Wakefield district council found itself unable to maintain its supply of council housing and transferred it all to
10208-446: The redevelopment favourable with many Seacroft residents. The Seacroft Green Shopping Centre is also the main transport interchange in Seacroft, with the main bus station for Seacroft and the surrounding areas being centred there. From here buses run out through the estate as well as to the city centre , Wetherby and Harrogate . Seacroft bus station has five stands and an average daily footfall of 2,687. (See Transport) The centre
10324-541: The remit of Secretary of State for the Environment Michael Heseltine , the Right To Buy scheme allowed tenants to buy their home with a discount of 33–50% off the market value, depending on the time they had lived there. Councils were prevented from reinvesting the proceeds of these sales in new housing, and the total available stock, particularly of more desirable homes, declined. The policy resulted in
10440-936: The same site. The main secondary school in Seacroft was Foxwood School , which became an adult education centre, the East Leeds Family Learning Centre , but was demolished in 2009. The school was used as 'San Quentin High' in The Beiderbecke Affair . The buildings were completed in 1962 and are a complex of buildings set in a square with a central courtyard. The main building was a six-storey tower block. Notable former pupils include Andrew Edge (musician), David Harvey (footballer) and Ellery Hanley (rugby league player). Former teachers include Colin Burgon ( Labour Party MP for Elmet which included Wetherby , Garforth , Cross Gates and Swarcliffe ), who himself
10556-500: The spellings Secroft , Secrofte are attested around 1090 (surviving in a manuscript of 1403). The name comes from the Old English words sǣ ("large body of water") and croft ("enclosure"). Thus the name once meant "enclosure near a pool or marsh". In vicinity of Seacroft was once found the field-name Chetwde , attested in 1341, which is unusual among English names for deriving partly from Common Brittonic : its first element
10672-553: The stone-built St James's Parish Church ( C of E , 1845), a brick Wesleyan Chapel (1874), a brick Congregational Church (1951, badly damaged in an arson attack in 2015, leading to its demolition in 2017) and a brick Roman Catholic Church , Our Lady of Good Counsel (1954). Seacroft Hospital is Leeds' third-largest hospital , being significantly smaller than the Leeds General Infirmary and St James' University Hospital . Situated between Seacroft and Killingbeck , opposite
10788-455: The subsidies to private builders. Following the line of the railways, predominantly private estates were built on cheap agricultural land; building houses that the professional classes with an income of £300–500 a year were able to afford. These pattern-book houses, put up speculatively by companies such as Wimpey , Costain , Laing and Taylor Woodrow , were mocked by Osbert Lancaster as " By-pass Variegated ". Large council estates following
10904-753: The summer of the same year, the group also purchased the Europa Hotel situated close to Gatwick Airport . In the following 10 years, the group acquired 16 more hotels in locations such as Birmingham , Aberdeen and Newcastle . In November 2004, it acquired four hotels from the Grand Leisure Group: the Grand Hotel in Scarborough , the Grand Hotel in Llandudno , the Grand Burstin Hotel in Folkestone and
11020-644: The tenants either relocated themselves to neighbouring overcrowded properties or became isolated away from friends in flats and houses, on estates without infrastructure or a bus-route. Glasgow led the way and others followed. Tower blocks became the preferred model. The councils visited Marseille and saw the results of Charles Édouard Jenneret 's (Le Corbusier's) vision. The argument was advanced that more generously sized dwellings could be provided this way, that communities could be re-housed close to existing employment opportunities and there would be far less disruption to local shopping and leisure patterns. During
11136-468: The term "social housing" became widely used, as technically council housing only refers to housing owned by a local authority, though the terms are largely used interchangeably. Before 1865, housing for the poor was provided solely by the private sector. Council houses were then built on council estates, known as schemes in Scotland, where other amenities, like schools and shops, were often also provided. From
11252-422: The worse conditions, and could not afford to pay the higher rents of the new houses, or travel to or from them to work. They continued in substandard housing circling the urban core; in Manchester, for example, this 'slum belt' was about half a mile wide. While new council housing had been built, little had been done to resolve the problem of inner-city slums , which could also be found in many smaller towns. This
11368-518: The worst hotel chain in the United Kingdom for the 11th consecutive year, in last place with an overall score of 48%. Britannia Hotels had been last place in the Which? hotel chain rankings since October 2013, when the editor Richard Headland warned that other chains (such as Premier Inn ) were undercutting Britannia with better service at similar prices. In 2005 and 2006, the Grand Hotel in Scarborough and
11484-488: Was an isolated instance. The first council to build housing as an integrated policy was Liverpool Corporation , starting with St Martin's Cottages in Ashfield Street, Vauxhall , completed in 1869. The Corporation then built Victoria Square Dwellings, opened by Home Secretary Sir Richard Cross in 1885. That year, a royal commission was held, as the state had taken an interest in housing and housing policy. This led to
11600-464: Was built towards the South West of the estate. The build quality of these houses was notably poor and many have now been demolished to be replaced with modern housing . The older council houses were generally built to a higher quality and are still in good condition. The brutalist Seacroft Civic Centre stood until its demolition in 1999, when it was replaced by the Seacroft Green Shopping Centre, which
11716-617: Was divided into outside relief, or handouts to keep the family together, and inside relief, which meant submitting to the workhouse. The workhouse provided for two groups of people – the transient population roaming the country looking for seasonal work, and the long-term residents. The two were kept separate where possible. The long-term residents included single elderly men incapable of further labour, and young women with their children—often women who had been abandoned by their husbands, single mothers and servant-girls who had been dismissed from residential positions. The pressure for decent housing
11832-576: Was exhausted, peripheral estates were built on the edge of the town. Residents needed to commute by public transport or bicycle, as almost none of the people living in these areas had cars until well after World War II . Councils bought vacant land in neighbouring boroughs to build overspill estates . In Greater Manchester , this included Wythenshawe in 1930 and then Hattersley in the 1960s. Later, infill estates were created on small pieces of brown field land that had been vacated by contracting heavy industry. Britannia Hotels Britannia Hotels
11948-582: Was founded in 1976 with the purchase of the Britannia Country House Hotel in Didsbury , Manchester . Its chief executive, founder, and largest shareholder remains Alex Langsam. Langsam is a non-domiciled UK resident, registered as living in Austria for tax purposes since 1999. His net personal worth was valued at £90 million in 2013 by The Sunday Times . The company's head office is Halecroft ,
12064-444: Was from Gipton . Seacroft falls into the Killingbeck & Seacroft electoral ward of Leeds City Council and Leeds East parliamentary constituency , represented by Labour MP Richard Burgon . As of 2018 , it has three Labour councillors. Seacroft was formerly a township in the parishes of Whitkirk and Leeds and a chapelry in the parish of Whitkirk, in 1866 Seacroft became a separate civil parish , on 9 November 1912
12180-539: Was in poor condition before its outbreak. Before the war many social housing projects, such as the Quarry Hill Flats in Leeds were built. However, the bomb damage meant that much greater progress had to be made with slum clearance projects. In heavily bombed cities like London, Coventry and Kingston upon Hull , the redevelopment schemes were often larger and more radical. In the immediate post-war years, and well into
12296-676: Was increased by overcrowding in the large cities during the Industrial Revolution of the 19th century; many social commentators (such as Octavia Hill ) reported on the squalor, sickness and immorality that arose. Some industrialists and independent organisations provided housing in tenement blocks , while some philanthropist factory owners built entire villages for their workers, such as Saltaire (1853), Bournville (1879) and Port Sunlight (1888). The City of London Corporation built tenements in Farringdon Road in 1865, but this
12412-404: Was not entirely popular with many local residents who said they had lost their town centre to a Tesco supermarket and to an extent, this may be true. Although there are shops besides Tesco, they are far fewer than there were, the precinct area has been lost, the pubs in the centre have been lost, and there are no offices. Until the building of the new centre, and since the closure of Grandways , it
12528-466: Was on inner-city slum clearance , completing the job that was started in the 1930s. Harold Macmillan 's task, as Minister for Housing, was to deliver 300,000 houses a year. These were 700 square feet (65 m ), 20% smaller than a Tudor Walters Bevan house, usually built as a two-bedroom terrace called "The Peoples House". From 1956, with the Housing Subsidy Act 1956 the government subsidy
12644-459: Was part of Humberside county from 1974 to 1996. Because of its size, Seacroft has often been referred to as a town. The original vision, envisaged by the council, was that it would be a 'Town within the City Limits', and the Seacroft Civic Centre was often referred to as the 'Seacroft Town Centre'. The name Seacroft is first attested in the Domesday Book of 1086, as Sacroft and Sacrofft ;
12760-404: Was placed on English Heritage's register of "at risk" historical buildings. The city council's attempt to compulsorily purchase the building was rejected on 29 November 2011. In 2015 Britannia sold the building to Allied London which began redevelopment as a mixed-use leisure and hotel facility. The 1988 Philip Saville film The Fruit Machine featured interior and main entrance scenes of
12876-469: Was restricted to only new houses built to replace those removed by slum clearance, and more money was given to tower blocks higher than six stories. With this subsidy, neighbourhoods throughout the country were demolished and rebuilt as mixed estates with low and high-rise building. At the same time the rising influence of modernist architecture, the development of new cheaper construction techniques, such as system building (a form of prefabrication ), and
12992-425: Was said that Seacroft suffered from 'food poverty' and fresh produce could not be bought on the estate. This was probably not true as there was a Co-op (now McColls in 2018) on South Parkway. The rebuilding of the Civic Centre did not alter the deprivation on the estate. Throughout the 2000s (decade), the condition of many of the houses on the estate deteriorated, particularly amongst the prefabricated housing to
13108-474: Was set up to regenerate a large area of predominantly interwar council housing in the north of Hull , Humberside . Liverpool HAT covered 67 of the worst tower blocks on Merseyside ; 54 of these blocks were demolished and replaced by new public or private sector housing developments, while the remaining 13 blocks were refurbished. Stonebridge HAT in Harlesden , London, was the final HAT to cease to exist when it
13224-614: Was to change with the Housing Act 1930 ( Greenwood Act), which required councils to prepare slum clearance plans, and some progress was made before the Second World War intervened. During the Second World War almost four million British homes were destroyed or damaged , and afterwards there was a major boom in council house construction. The bomb damage from the war only worsened the condition of Britain's housing stock, which
13340-755: Was typically built on a square grid 21 feet (6.4 m) on the side, with a maximum density of houses of no more than 12 per acre (30/ha), that is to say around 337 square metres (403 sq yd) per house. As a result, most houses had generous space around them. The new towns and many existing towns had countless estates built to this basic model. In Scotland , the tradition of tenement living meant that most homes of this period were built in low-rise (3–4) storey blocks of flats . For many working-class people, this housing model provided their first experience of private indoor toilets, private bathrooms and hot running water, as well as gardens and electric lighting. For tenants in England and Wales it also usually provided
13456-561: Was wound up in 2007, mostly covering an area of council housing built during the 1960s and 1970s. Waltham Forest HAT in South London covered several council estates, mostly built during the 1960s, and lasted until 2002, with the final phase of the regeneration being completed several years later by English Partnerships . Tower Hamlets HAT involved the regeneration of three council estates, mostly consisting of flats, in East London . Perhaps
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