plan in the 1970s by residents of Divis (lower Falls) and the Shankill cemented rights discourse as an intrinsic part of everyday politics in these areas. Without legal recourse under the European Social Charter of the time, activists used new methods of direct action to mobilize for decent, affordable housing. They also asserted rights of local people to traditional forms of housing, in traditional areas of residence. As activists became more confident, they asserted the right of social housing tenants to direct the planning and construction of housing. Their tactics included direct action, research and documentation, media campaigns, and lobbying professional planners directly.
The NIHE took over the management of public housing from local councils in 1971. In the postwar estates—New Barnsley, Moyard, Springmartin, and Glencairn—construction was so poor that residents developed health problems. New Barnsley children suffered from dysentery because inadequate sewage facilities tainted the water supply. Glencairn children had high rates of asthma, partly because of the inadequate heating systems. Moyard flats and maisonettes were a disaster, with flooding, leaks, vermin, and, again, high rates of dysentery and asthma. In all three areas, residents compiled surveys of conditions and shared their data with the NIHE to lobby for repairs or replacement housing. But they also went to the media with their complaints (Irish News, August 16, 1974, 12). This increased emphasis on documentation and publicity became a significant and effective tactic of housing campaigns.
Residents saw the plans as part of a deeper conspiracy between security forces and city planners to engineer out of existence the troublesome interfaces of west Belfast. They viewed the plans as slum clearances, putting nationalists in flats and moving loyalists to outlying estates. Most importantly, the plans would destroy social structures that were inseparable from the physical structure of the terraces and the streets as communal space. The hostility of people in the lower Falls and Shankill to the flats cannot be overstated. Despite the poor condition of terraced housing, campaigners did not want wholesale demolition; they wanted to improve the physical structures that shaped social life—and they wanted to take the lead in planning how to preserve their houses and streets. The initial efforts of local redevelopment groups, however, did little to alter the course of government plans, despite intense lobbying. Large swathes of terraced housing were demolished, and flats were indeed built in the lower Shankill and Divis.
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