Beware The Baker Boys

Luxton Heights was the quintessential showcase of British 1970’s estate housing. The hastily constructed concrete tower block replete with dual lift (neither of which had worked simultaneously since Thatcher took office) gained planning approval with the mere formality of a public servant’s yawn and rubber stamp one Friday afternoon after a few pints at the pub, and it quickly imposed itself in the concrete jungle landscape of south-east London. Touted as ‘a community for Britain’s up and coming families,’ within five years its inhabitants were anything but what the developers had envisioned; wanton acts of the paid variety were commonplace within the units, empty beer cans and used syringes adorned the stairwells, and there was a constant stench of human waste that trailed the graffitied walls. If Luxton Heights was supposed to be vision for the next golden British age of architecture and harmonious community living, someone had forgot to mention it to the poor souls who had the misfortune to call this place their home.