OPENING my front door I breathe in the smell of red and pink roses as I watch the sun rise over our woodland-side crescent.
The only sound comes from the neighbour’s chicken coop as I hear a rooster calling out cock-a-doodle-do.
It’s like stepping into a scene from The Waltons as I make my way past fields and rolling hills.
However, it is not a family homestead I live on but rather a council estate and Britain’s nicest in my opinion.
I live on Parksite, in North Staffordshire’s Silverdale, a village near Stoke-on-Trent and in the suburbs of Newcastle-under-Lyme, my local market town.
While naysaying locals will be quick to tarnish its name, they’re just being snobs, if they didn’t know it was a council estate they would be fighting for a set of keys themselves.
Why do people look down on council estate tenants like me, I’ll never know – who doesn’t want a peaceful home surrounded by countryside? With cheap rent? And friendly neighbours?
I live at the top of a steep hill on a long private drive in my shared ownership bungalow and pay my way with a little journalism, and state benefits like Universal Credit and PIP.
It only costs me £380 a month and I boast two gardens to the front and back, with blossom trees and flowers, lovingly cared for & nurtured by myself and my boyfriend, an aspiring Capability Brown.
It’s not just our gardens that are green, floral and verdant with the neighbours pruning their rose bushes most mornings.
There isn’t a tower block in sight as Parksite has Keele – a small countryside University village – next door. And Scot Hay – another country village with a farm – to the other side.
I feel incredibly lucky to live on Parksite and pinch myself most days to check I’m not just living in a dream.
Aside from Parksite’s abundant nature, it is the residents that make the place.
Far from teaming with chavs and ABSO-slapped teens you find friendly families and people have time to stop and say hello when they’re taking a stroll.
I’ve even put a tangerine and fuchsia egg chair outside my front door so I can greet passersby as I smoke one of my 40-a-day ciggies.
There’s a 2.5K-strong community of local Silverdale residents on Facebook, who help each other out with missing pets, free household items, and lost bank cards and smartphones.
Far from getting mugged, on our council estate residents make it their mission to keep your valuables with you.
Not long ago, local campaigners, academics and MPs also clubbed together to get a nearby stinking landfill closed down. They finally won, and it was closed last year.
Today the air is more fragrant and the streets much cleaner here than when I lived in cities like Birmingham and London, too. The bins are always emptied on time (Hackney Council take note!)
I’ve lived on several estates in my time, here in Staffordshire and all over London and none of them are a patch on Parksite.
In London, I lived in a shared, one-bedroom council flat on the Roman Road in Bethnal Green which I rented for £75 a week. I enjoyed the fish market and cheap winkles.
But not the community. Once a car was blown-up on the estate at 2am. It was terrifying to wake up to a bang and flames lighting up the entire estate.
Another time, while a student, I lived on one of the high rises on Shepherd’s Bush Green.
While it was lovely to be in central London, the flat always stank of weed and I’d often hear next door arguing.
When I returned to Staffordshire to help care for my mother in 2010, I lived on the Highfields estate in Stafford for a year. It was cheap, but the one-bedroom flat had no flooring down and I found the grey pebbledash facade of my Cul de Sac really depressing.
It’s different here on the Parksite estate.
Visitors always notice how quiet it is: “It’s so peaceful here” They’ll coo.
What It's Really Like Growing Up On A Council Estate
Fabulous reporter, Leanne Hall, recalls what it's like growing up in social housing.
As someone who grew up in a block of flats on a council estate, there are many wild stories I could tell.
From seeing a neighbour throw dog poo at the caretaker for asking them to mow their lawn (best believe they ended up on the Jeremy Kyle show later in life) to blazing rows over packages going missing, I’ve seen it all.
While there were many times things kicked off, I really do believe most of the time it’s because families living on council estates get to know each other so well, they forget they’re neighbours and not family.
Yes, things can go from zero to 100 quickly, but you know no matter what you can rely on your neighbour to borrow some milk or watch all of the kids playing outside.
And if you ask me, it’s much nicer being in a tight community where boundaries can get crossed than never even knowing your neighbour’s name while living on a fancy street.
Thanks to support from the local council, Aspire, I’m able to afford the rent and upkeep of the property.
But the real difference from the pokey flats I once afforded is that it’s the first time I’ve had my own garden, and my own drive.
As I write this, the sun is rising over the council housing rooftops – all red-orange glow, and also rising over the green parkland and bushy trees of Silverdale. It’s so peaceful.
My favourite memories here include sitting outside when the sun’s out on my secondhand sunlounger. I’ll be in the back garden, surrounded by green and just soak it all up.
I so enjoy all the forest, all the nature, all the woodland sounds like a sparrow or the breeze among the grasses and buttercups.
The only other sound’s the tiny waterfall in the pond we’ve built to the left, overlooked by a red, Japanese Acer tree and a big silver Buddha head I bought from TK Maxx some years ago.
My boyfriend also bought a TV when he moved in but we tend to just watch the wildlife in the forest over the bank, from the bifold windows that frame our sitting room – squirrels, nuthatches, woodpeckers.
We have a birdfeeder here and can sometimes hear an owl in the dead of night.
I believe I’ll be here until I retire now and – after decades of struggling with shambolic, overpriced rentals in inferior council flats and dilapidated terraces – I finally feel complete and at peace.
