Heritage in and of the Housing Crisis: the Case of the Aylesbury Estate

Abstract

The UK’s housing crisis is at breaking point, caused primarily by deregulation, the diminished provision of public housing and the marketing of housing as property assets rather than homes. Yet the role of the heritage industry within these processes has been insufficiently analysed. This paper outlines multiple intersections between heritage and the housing crisis by examining the regeneration of one of London’s post-World War II public housing estates, the Aylesbury. It will illustrate how heritage methods and discourse have been instrumentalised by property developers and estate residents and discuss the implications this has for the heritage sector.