Peter Mortimer in Sherwood, Nottingham

The writer Peter Mortimer grew up on Danethorpe Vale, on the same council estate as where serial killer Harold Shipman grew up (on Edwards Lane). I too grew up on that estate (Gunthorpe Drive), and all three of us went to High Pavement Grammar School, which I can't say is a thing to boast about at all. I have happy memories of the estate, although Thomas Cecil Howitt's glorious vision was ruined in 1980 when Thatcher came along and created Right to Buy: I no longer lived there, but I could clearly see on visits to my parents that the doors and windows, for instance, were changing, the uniformity of the estate was changing rapidly, and much for the worse, as the estate was losing its character.

Thatcher's terrifying housing legacy extends far beyond council estates, reaches deep within new housing estates plagued by unbelievably rapacious management company leasehold (and fake freehold) charges, into any new estate which councils refuse to recognise, and her very black shadow is behind every legally extortionate (and very often sub-standard) new housing estate.

I doubt that Peter Mortimer is aware of this.