From acclaimed director Andrea Arnold, this movie is a highly charged - yet realistic - depiction of contemporary life on some of the UK’s housing estates.

At times it is tough to watch, especially the brutality of some of the human relationships, yet it retains real warmth and has a redemptive conclusion.

As seen on screen

What is really interesting is that housing issues - the maisonette within which the family live and the whole estate they inhabit - dominate the very character of the film in a way that is seldom seen on screen.

Fish Tank was filmed on the Mardyke estate in Havering while many other scenes were filmed in Dagenham. Both the old and new A13 play critical roles in a landscape so familiar for many across east London and Essex.

Watching the movie makes you ask time and again about the successes and failures of government housing strategy over the decades.
In order to get to the decent homes target, the Mardyke estate was stock transferred to Old Ford Housing Association, part of the Circle Anglia group, in March 2008. Major plans exist for the redevelopment of the estate, something obviously ignored in the drama itself. But what does the movie and the reality of the estate tell us about housing policy more generally?

In terms of public investment, no one can doubt the commitment shown by the government to improving housing standards over the past decade.
The resources that have gone into bringing the nation’s council housing stock up to decent homes standard are extraordinary, amounting to tens of billions of pounds.

This investment is in addition to money that has helped create new homes, either through housing associations or more recently and most welcome, via councils.

The bottom line is that this total investment has and will continue to improve the life chances and health of millions of our families. More often than not, these families have been those in greatest need.

Personally, I am particularly pleased that the role of councils has been strengthened in housing provision and regenerating local communities through the promotion of innovative delivery vehicles, such as my own council at Barking & Dagenham. These will be a lasting legacy and greatly extend the real localism agenda.

More generally, over the past four months we have seen intensification of the work of the Communities and Local Government department around housing issues.

A big penny appears to have dropped within the department that the private sector will not deliver the homes needed. It took the credit crunch for many in government and the civil service to realise what others had known for many years - that we have to rebuild a mixed economy in the supply of housing.

Yet, I believe John Healey deserves real credit for what he is achieving as housing minister in a short space of time.

The commitment to address the Byzantine and quite unjust Housing Revenue Account system is a tangible response from government - we are, of course, waiting to see the resolution of the details, but change is coming.

On the cutting room floor

In this story, though, there are some omissions. Many families living on large estates would not recognise reports of progress being made as the fabric of their homes decays.

The introduction of decent homes targets had the perverse effect of making councils concentrate on homes that were easiest to get up to standard, often leaving behind the more challenging and expensive estates.

This means that there is desperate need for future investment in comprehensive renewal of estates up and down the country in city and town centres. Yet these achieving this will require major investment precisely at a time when we are experiencing major cuts and austerity.

The other chief omission is that the decent homes standard was pretty basic and very limited in its scope. A family could be living in a home which ticked the box for decent home qualification but the areas that they pass through to get to their flat or house might be in a state of disrepair.

Rather belatedly, there is now recognition of this and a broader ‘decent places’ agenda is emerging for implementation post 2010. This is welcome but, again, it will come at a price. Still, it should not be seen as some form of optional extra.

The next few years have the potential to be tough for investment in housing. If investment shrinks, the reality is that it will be the people living on some of our most neglected estates who will pay the price for propping up the entire banking system. That cannot be allowed to happen.

I recognise that over the next five years the pressures on public expenditure will be intense and make no mistake, the level of investment needed to bring about this programme will be high, but the long-term social and economic costs of neglecting these communities is likely to be even higher.

If you are still in any doubt, watch the movie. You won’t regret it.

Jon Cruddas is Labour MP for Dagenham

Have your say

You must sign in to make a comment