The politics of listing and urban heritage: social housing, representation and the case of Robin Hood Gardens

This paper examines how the politics of listing buildings in the UK intersect with urban heritage and redevelopment, focusing on the contested case of the Robin Hood Gardens (RHG) estate in East London. Drawing on listing casework obtained thorough a Freedom of Information request it explores discussions between Historic England, the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, and the Twentieth Century Society, analysing how representations of the estate were constructed within the listing process between 2007 and 2015. The analysis shows how rhetoric and discourse worked to devalue RHG as a lived place, framing it through narrow aesthetic and material criteria aligned with wider redevelopment plans in East London. Situating this within debates in social and cultural geography, the paper argues that listing operates as a hegemonic apparatus that translates contested meanings into administratively legible forms of value, often facilitating displacement and the erasure of working-class urban heritage. It concludes by calling for more socially attuned, participatory approaches to heritage governance that centre lived experience.