I attended my first public consultation for a new housing development almost 30 years ago. It was one of the largest urban regeneration schemes in the UK. Unsurprisingly, given that the homes of thousands of people would be affected, the meeting was well attended and lively.

I sat at the back. At the front was an architect. His presentation was engaging and passionate, but he used words like units instead of homes, and when talking about the difficult process of people having to move away from the estates so that their homes could be demolished, he referred to it as decanting. The atmosphere in the room became increasingly fractious. Tenants, understandably suspicious, did not respond well.

What they were hearing, although it wasn’t being said, was that their community was one that was deemed to have failed so badly it had to be knocked down. And the architect was demonstrating a mind-numbing lack of empathy.

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