Many homeowners would feel uncomfortable living next to social housing – and this snobbery is fueling a segregation crisis The stigma around social tenancies has led to new developments physically separating residents by class using poor doors

Like Dante’s Inferno, Britain’s housing crisis hell spreads out in concentric circles from the worst place to be: London.

In our capital, these days, you are where you live. On one side of the street, luxury glass-clad towers sit empty like ghost ships, their concierge-served lobbies barely used while, around the corner, that same building has another entrance – a “poor door”.

These are intended to segregate social tenants – or those who have bought using schemes like shared ownership from private renters – and homeowners. And, at some developments, facilities – like playgrounds and gyms – are segregated too.

i's opinion newsletter: talking points from today Email address is invalid Email address is invalid Thank you for subscribing! Sorry, there was a problem with your subscription.

Emma Barnes, 29, goes in and out of her flat at New Providence Wharf in Tower Hamlets through a poor door every day. She lives on what she calls “the social housing” side of the development after buying her home through shared ownership from developer Ballymore.

‘You feel like a second class citizen’

“Our entrance is around the back,” Emma tells i, “quite literally next to the bins, and if we try to ask the other side’s concierge for help with anything we are sent away. For instance, I forgot my keys and my boyfriend asked them if they could look after a set for an hour until I got back. They said no.”

“I’ve never actually spoken to anyone who uses the other door,” she continues.

“We are so cut off from them that there really aren’t any opportunities to speak in everyday life. I emailed their residents’ association once to ask if our section of the development could join but I never heard back.”

The silence is deafening but, perhaps, Emma shouldn’t be surprised. According to the most recent British Social Attitudes survey over a quarter – 27 per cent – of 46 to 55 year-old say they feel uncomfortable living next to social housing. Those who own their own home (31 per cent), meanwhile, are even more likely to say they are uncomfortable than those who rent (21 per cent).

Emma, who works in health policy, says she is “frustrated” and “angry” that Ballymore were allowed to build a development which was effectively segregated.

“You feel like a second class citizen in your own home,” she added, “I think it’s just snobbery”.

Beyond being forced to use a different entrance, the list of facilities that Emma and those who live on her side of the building can’t access is long: “gym, spa, swimming pool, concierge, rooftop lounge and a car park.”

Government contempt for ordinary people

Earlier this week, outgoing housing secretary James Brokenshire pledged that the Government would “stamp out” the practice of developers installing different doors for those in social housing. However, it has since emerged that what will be introduced later in the year is not a ban at all but, in fact, merely new guidance for developers applying for planning permission.

We’ve long known that luxury developments are marketed to offshore investments, with a lack of social housing being considered as a USP.

Emma feels, perhaps quite rightly, that as long as we have poor doors and segregated facilities built into new developments, we will have a two tier housing system built around shame and stigma.

Since Brokenshire’s pledge, Boris Johnson has replaced Theresa May. As Mayor of London he ruled out a ban on poor doors while, as Prime Minister, Theresa May made a dramatic departure from her predecessors by returning to investment in social housing for the first time since 2010.

The new Prime Minister will be considering his approach to housing and whether that includes ending segregation, and therefore social housing stigma, remains to be seen. But, with fewer people able to buy a home of their own without help, what sort of message do these practices send? All over the country we face a housing crisis, in particular that crisis is one of a shortage of affordable housing so why show contempt for ordinary people in this way?

Developer Ballymore are yet to respond to request for comment