I'm researching the Hartlepools (NB the plural) and will be publishing shortly. Happy to hear from anyone with local expertise or images. In the meantime, this from the Hartlepool Northern Daily Mail in 1934 makes me nostalgic for a powerful local press and politics. © British Newspaper Archive.

Michael Romyn's new book provides a forensic account of the practical and emotional impact of racial discrimination in policing and the law, social services, health and housing in recent decades. It's an academic book but the more authoritative thereby. global.oup.com/academic/pro...

The Sandy Lane Redevelopment Area as envisaged by Birmingham City Engineer, Herbert Manzoni, in September 1945. Spoiler alert: the completed project was less idyllic. (Seen in the Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery).

1/ The banner of the Moor Pool Estate's Harborne Tenants Junior Guild, made by Julia Jephson in 1909. The estate, designed on Garden City lines (photos in next post), was established in 1907 by John Sutton Nettlefold.

To an early resident, Birmingham's Castle Vale estate was 'utopia'. A few years later, the local MP labelled it a 'civic pigsty'. My new Substack post takes a look at what went wrong: municipaldreams.substack.com/p/the-castle...

To an early resident, Birmingham's Castle Vale estate was 'utopia'. A few years later, the local MP labelled it a 'civic pigsty'. My new Substack post takes a look at what went wrong: municipaldreams.substack.com/p/the-castle...

I've just come across this interesting article on York's City Architect's Department: www.yorkc20.york.ac.uk/vignette/the...

🚨 New on Substack: my post on the Castle Vale Estate, Birmingham, Part I: ‘Utopia’ to ‘civic pigsty’ municipaldreams.substack.com/p/the-castle...

The Gillette Building, 1937, West London: designed by Bannister Fletcher and formerly the European HQ of the Gillette Company, employing 1000 people into the 1950s. Gillette moved its manufacturing to Poland in 2006. Grade II-listed and awaiting repurposing. (The lamp posts are Victorian.)

Syon House Conservatory, West London: built 1820-27 to the designs of Charles Fowler, architect, and Richard Forrest, head gardener to the Duke of Northumberland. Grade I-listed.

'Zeeburgerdorp Housing Supervisor Mrs Schuurman with children of the residents, 1927'. This week's post tells the extraordinary story of the segregated estates created in the Netherlands to control antisocial tenants. Photo © Stadsarchief Amsterdam. municipaldreams.wordpress.com/2026/10/13/w...

“...a rich, thought-provoking book, perhaps unique in both its specificity and breadth.” Available in the UK from our website, or worldwide from Blackwell's (with modest postage). blackwells.co.uk/bookshop/pro...

Municipal Dreams@municipaldreams.bsky.social · 2w ago

🚨 New on Substack, my review of the artist Stephen Willats' council estate artworks: municipaldreams.substack.com/p/book-revie...

'Zeeburgerdorp Housing Supervisor Mrs Schuurman with children of the residents, 1927'. This week's post tells the extraordinary story of the segregated estates created in the Netherlands to control antisocial tenants. Photo © Stadsarchief Amsterdam. municipaldreams.wordpress.com/2026/10/13/w...

1/ Bridge Road and Fieldway, Haslemere - houses built by the co-partnership Haslemere Tenants' Society founded by Aneurin Williams, a director of First Garden City Ltd, and local curate, the Rev GH Aitken, in 1911.

Two unusual signposts a couple of miles apart in Hastoe and Wigginton, Herts #FingerpostFriday

1/ 🚨 Breaking News: the Cressingham Gardens and Central Hill Estates - two high-quality and much-loved schemes built by Lambeth Council in the late 60s and early 70s have - after sustained campaigning by residents - been saved from demolition: www.theguardian.com/society/2026...

Two 1960s London housing estates saved from demolition after decade-long battle

Change of council leadership hands reprieve to residents of architecturally celebrated developments in Lambeth

theguardian.com

'120 years ago, the people of Wendover marched on Coombe Hill in protest of the fences erected by the new landlord, Sir John Walton. Two things about the mass trespass are of interest: firstly, it was massively successful, and secondly, almost no one knows about it.' Here's the view.

Buckinghamshire Archives@bucksarchives.bsky.social · 2w ago

Join us for this talk on the Coombe Hill Mass Trespass, an event that newspapers at the time described as the ‘Right of Way War’. This talk draws on brand new research from documents uncovered only this year in the archive. For more information, head to histfestbucks.co.uk

@uniformbooks.bsky.social I have republished my 2016 review of Stephen Willats 'Vision and Reality' on Substack. You'll find it here with appropriate links and credits: municipaldreams.substack.com/p/book-revie...

Book Review: Stephen Willats, Vision and Reality

Stephen Willats, Vision and Reality (Uniformbooks, 2016)

municipaldreams.substack.com

🚨 New on Substack, my review of the artist Stephen Willats' council estate artworks: municipaldreams.substack.com/p/book-revie...

Book Review: Stephen Willats, Vision and Reality

Stephen Willats, Vision and Reality (Uniformbooks, 2016)

municipaldreams.substack.com

Wendover, Bucks - clock tower built 1843 with turret addition 1870. It originally housed the parish fire engine.

Hastoe Village Hall, Herts, opened in 1902, and adjacent cottages designed by local architect William Huckvale, part of 'a mini welfare state' created at the turn of the century by Lady Emma Rothschild around the family's Tring estate.

🚨 Brand new post: Dutch housing authorities pursued extraordinarily harsh measures to deal with allegedly antisocial tenants. My post tells the story of the interwar and post-war 'woonschoolen' intended to inculcate respectable behaviour. municipaldreams.wordpress.com/2026/10/13/w...

A surgical team of the Women's Hospital Corps in the Hotel Claridge, Paris, #OTD 14 October 1914. Surgeon-in-Charge Dr Flora Murray (back to camera) administers chloroform, with Dr Marjorie Blandy (right). Source: www.iwm.org.uk/collections/...

🚨 Brand new post: Dutch housing authorities pursued extraordinarily harsh measures to deal with allegedly antisocial tenants. My post tells the story of the interwar and post-war 'woonschoolen' intended to inculcate respectable behaviour. municipaldreams.wordpress.com/2026/10/13/w...

Council housing, Fieldway and Wyck Road, Wigginton, Herts - built by Berkhamstead Rural District Council in the 1960s.

Just a quick reminder that we're spending a huge amount on housing; we're just not investing enough in building new housing. In 2024-25 we spent £36 billion on Housing Benefit and the housing element of Universal Credit and £2.84 billion on providing temporary accommodation for homeless families.

Very good post on the history of "problem tenants" in early public housing in the Netherlands and the UK. If interested in urban history, @municipaldreams.bsky.social really worth following.

Municipal Dreams@municipaldreams.bsky.social · 3w ago

The first of two posts on how British and Dutch housing management attempted to deal with tenants deemed 'unacceptable' - from women supervisors to segregated and controlled communities ... (Part II on Tuesday) municipaldreams.wordpress.com/2026/10/06/1...

The first of two posts on how British and Dutch housing management attempted to deal with tenants deemed 'unacceptable' - from women supervisors to segregated and controlled communities ... (Part II on Tuesday) municipaldreams.wordpress.com/2026/10/06/1...

The gatehouse to Zomerhof in the Hague (nicknamed the machine-gun nest by residents) - a segregated estate created by the municipality to train 'unacceptable' tenants to better behaviour. More on British and Dutch interwar housing management here: municipaldreams.wordpress.com/2026/10/06/1...

From low-rise to high-rise - the story of Hackney's post-war council housing ... municipaldreams.substack.com/p/post-war-h...