Highgate New Town is one of the council housing estates produced by Camden Architects Department under Borough Architect Sydney Cook. The first plans for a redevelopment of this area were proposed in 1966. The existing housing was around a hundred years old and consisted of two and three storey terraces. It was seen as unsuitable for modern residential requirements - 75% of the houses had no bathroom. A joint scheme with Islington was worked on covering an ajoining area but when this failed the two boroughs went their separate ways.
As the various stages of this development were designed and built at different points between 1972 and 2014 the area offers a facinating insight into changing architectural tastes and attitudes to social housing.
