Cally residents Eileen Christie and Amanda Arnold, who say The Mega Council Estate Next Door is ‘unfair, unjust and just wrong’

• I WAS disappointed to read about the unfair depictions of Islington residents Eileen Christie and Amanda Arnold had experienced on The Mega Council Estate Next Door, aired on Channel 5, (‘TV show has made us look like scroungers’, September 11).

Ironically this came just days before the Chartered Institute of Housing launched a report on tackling stigma associated with social housing residents (It’s not okay: a guide for tackling stigma in social housing).

Sadly it appears that the programme is promoting the usual tropes of comparing the “haves” and “have-nots” and making light of the working class experience, as if it is something to be gawked at.

In a post-Jeremy Kyle world I’d hoped that this type of exploitation had become a thing of the past and that producers would be increasingly aware of their duty of care to participants and understand how harmful negative media depictions can be to the individuals involved but also social groups at large.

Unfortunately it looks as though the problematic stigmas associated with living in social housing look set to stick around for a bit longer as we find ourselves lumbered with a government unwilling to invest in social housing and instead continues to flog home ownership as the only desirable way to live; something that is out of reach for many people across the country.

At the very least I hope that Eileen and Amanda receive the apologies they more than deserve from Channel 5.

PAUL SWAN
Bavaria Road, N19