THIS WEEK IN 1979: Portsmouth is listed in problems survey

The report by an authoritative newspaper for the building industry also looked at local authorities which inherited houses from post-war new town development corporations and faced bills of £83m for repairs to faulty buildings.

The survey was carried out by Building Design into the cost of building failures in Britain’s ‘shoddily built’ post-war council homes.

The newspaper said the bill facing local authorities was just one of the examples of the cost of the failures.

The survey, which updated a similar review carried out by Building Designs three years previously, described failures totalling over £200m and listed local disasters such as the £1m Westminster Council had to spend on four estates, and £18m that was to be spent on a GLC built estate at Andover – every penny of which was to be borne by ratepayers, as the Department of the Environment was unlikely to provide and financial assistance.

The survey described blocks at Hillingdon and Aldershot, among others, which required demolishing.