09/05/2026
MUNICIPAL DREAMS - THE RISE AND FALL OF COUNCIL HOUSING
Holmfirth Tech Wednesday 13th May at 7:00pm
EcoHolmes are hosting a talk by John Boughton, social historian, on MUNICIPAL DREAMS - THE RISE AND FALL OF COUNCIL HOUSING on Wednesday 13th May 2026 in the Cafe Room at the Holmfirth Tech, following on from our AGM. EcoHolmes supporters who are not Members are welcome to attend the AGM as guests at 7pm or to come along for the talk at 7.30pm. Refreshments will be available.
John Boughton has written about the social, political, and architectural history of council housing in the United Kingdom. He explores how the ambition to provide decent housing for all citizens became a central part of British politics and then traces the subsequent decline and "stigmatisation" of those same public estates. He argues that the modern housing crisis stems from abandoning the "municipal dream" of good-quality state-provided homes and ties in historical policy failures to contemporary tragedies, such as the Grenfell Tower fire, illustrating the consequences of neglecting social housing safety and community. Originally born out of Boughton's highly regarded blog of the same name, the book is widely cited as essential reading for understanding Britain's current housing challenges.
John Boughton is the author of Municipal Dreams: the Rise and Fall of Council Housing (Verso, 2018) and A History of Council Housing in 100 Estates (RIBA Books, 2022). His blog Municipal Dreams – a record of local authority housing and reform across the country and in Europe – has been viewed 2.5 million times. He is an Honorary Senior Research Fellow at the School of Architecture of the University of Liverpool.
