For a while, high rise blocks of flats seemed like the perfect answer to the post-war housing shortage. However, tenants were not always happy with the high-rise solution, since they felt isolated, and missed the sense of community they had been used to in terraced streets. The disaster at Ronan Point in May 1968 also showed how fragile this sort of construction was, when a gas explosion lead to the collapse of one whole corner of the building, and the deaths of three people.

Photograph Copyright Daily Telegraph, 1968

Tom McAllister
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London E15 4BZ
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Last updated 17 February 2003