Fresh questions have emerged about the Channel 4 documentary Benefits Street after it emerged that the BBC was involved in early discussions about commissioning the controversial series but decided against pursuing it.

One of the working titles for the BBC series was The Benefit Street, suggesting that its creators had a good idea of what the show was going to be about – and potentially called – long before those who appeared in it did. Several participants have claimed they were told the programme was about community spirit.

The company behind the series, Love Productions, approached the BBC two years ago. "It's true that the BBC was involved in some early development on the programme but we decided not to take the project further," said a spokeswoman for the corporation.

She declined to be drawn on why the BBC decided against the project but pointed out that in the last few years it has broadcast several programmes focused on benefits, including Nick and Margaret: We All Pay Your Benefits, a series fronted by Lord Sugar's two advisers on The Apprentice; BBC3's People Like Us, about people on a housing estate in Manchester; and The Future State of Welfare, presented by John Humphrys. The spokeswoman suggested that at the time when the BBC was deciding whether to proceed with what became Benefits Street, other formats "felt stronger".

Love, which is behind the BBC's hugely popular The Great British Bake Off, said the idea of focusing on one street where the majority of people were on benefits was suggested to the corporation only after another project fell through. "Benefits Street [in its current form] was not dropped by the BBC," a spokeswoman for Love said. "A completely different series involving an entrepreneur working with people who were unemployed and on benefits was decommissioned because the entrepreneur had a clash of commitments."

Some of the residents of James Turner Street in Winson Green, Birmingham, where the series is filmed, have expressed anger that they did not know what the programme was going to be called when it was being filmed.

After the first episode aired, Dee Roberts, a qualified mentor and support worker who featured in the show, told the Birmingham Mail: "They said they wanted to film for a TV show about how great community spirit is in the street. I participated in the show on that belief.

"But this programme has nothing to do with community, which you can tell from the title. It's all about people in the street living off benefits, taking drugs and dossing around all day. It makes people out as complete scum."

Love insists all involved were informed of the chosen title when they were invited to a pre-broadcast screening. At least one apparently agreed that it was the most suitable of the working titles that Love used in the two years since filming began.

Kieran Smith, the creative director behind the series, which has attracted more than 5 million viewers and has been a huge ratings success for C4, has insisted his team was "upfront" with the street's residents.

"We have been very clear with people that this is a series about benefits," he said last week. He told Radio 4's Today programme that he had not told residents the series was going to be called Benefits Street "because I didn't know it was going to be called Benefits Street then". The show has been attacked for supposedly encouraging criminal behaviour, including shoplifting and cannabis cultivation, but has also been praised for sparking a national debate about Britain's welfare system. But some question whether it gives an accurate portrayal of life in the street.

A couple who lived on the street said they had been filmed for a year but were not included in the final cut because they were not on benefits. Some residents allege they were "bribed" to appear with cigarettes, fast food and alcohol. It was said that furniture was moved from a nearby street so that the street's characters could be filmed lounging outside their homes. Love categorically denies these claims.

A community activist who is in contact with many of the residents who have featured in the programme says that their experiences has left them reluctant to appear in a live television debate discussing the furore that has erupted since it was broadcast. "Not many of them are keen to take part in the live debate," said Desmond Jaddoo of the Birmingham Empowerment Forum. "The 10 residents I am in contact with have said they won't take part." Jaddoo said the consequences of being under the media microscope were being felt across the neighbourhood. "Children are being bullied at school and people are driving by outside the school shouting abuse while the children are in the playground," he said.

There are signs that a backlash against what critics are calling "poverty porn" is building in the wake of the controversy.

Residents in Grimsby are angry that Skint, a similar Channel 4 documentary series about people on the poverty line, is currently being filmed in their town. Civic leaders fear Grimsby will end up being demonised by the show, which began test filming in the Nunsthorpe district of the town just before Christmas.

The first series of the show was filmed on the Westcliff estate in Scunthorpe and drew complaints from locals, who said it was "car crash television." Now the mayor of North-East Lincolnshire, Councillor Peggy Elliott, said she feared Grimsby could suffer from its exposure on national television.

"What we don't want is bad publicity that is created by a TV company cherry-picking one thing and then using it to bring down a whole area," she told the local press.