I don't know the UK situation in much depth but one of the things I read was how they were disconnected from the rest of the community (socially, services, transport, etc).
southwark has the most council estates. the further out boroughs did try and put their estates far out. Places like thamesmede (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thamesmead) failed because there was literally nothing else around (thats improved significantly, 50 years later)
