[12] Although most prominently associated with the development of the nearby Latchmere Estate in 1903, John Burns was born here in 1858 and grew up at 80 Grant Road with his family, thereafter becoming a Progressive member of the first London County Council for Battersea in 1889 and campaigning vigorously around the area.

Canon Erskine Clark, upon arrival on Plough Road in 1874, attributed the "proximity to the great railway centre "Clapham Junction" as the main reason for "its recent building boom" and rapid development.

This was documented in the Charles Booth poverty map in 1902, where the main streets of the estate around Darien and Winstanley Roads are coloured black and dark blue to signify "criminal" and "very poor" inhabitants.

[14] The Latchmere ward that the Estates area is within was particularly notable for the election of John Archer in 1906, one of the earliest Black British politicians (along with Allan Glaisyer Minns and Henry Sylvester Williams).

[15] The wider constituency's radical reputation was cemented in 1924, when Shapurji Saklatvala was elected to be one of the first-ever British Indian MPs as a member of the Communist Party of Great Britain for the former Battersea North.

[21] Much of the motivation to embark on a program of slum clearance for the construction of council estates stemmed from the personal childhood experiences of Battersea Borough's Housing Committee in these run-down homes, notably the chairman Sidney Sporle, often with unsafe multiple occupation, shared outdoor toilets, no running water or central heating.

[22] As previously stated, Clapham Junction, which is supposedly the busiest railway-station in London, the UK and Europe in terms of daily rail traffic, is situated directly to the south of the estates.

[32] After his imprisonment, there was a substantial campaign in the South London Press and backed by the subsequent Wandsworth Council housing chairman Alderman Dennis Mallam, and the then-chairman of the Winstanley Estate Tenant's Association Ernest Randell, to change the name of the block from Sporle Court, which ultimately appeared to be unsuccessful.

[40] The Winstanley estate is the location of Levi Root's first London restaurant, Papine Jerk Centre, where it served a local school (Thames Christian College) between 2007 and 2013 before unfortunately closing.

[50] The footballer Jamie Lawrence also lived for a year in a flat on next-door Totteridge House in Badric Court, later settling on Dunston Road in the Shaftesbury Park Estate and attending John Burns Primary School on Wycliffe Street.

One of the oldest and most effective is the Katherine Low Settlement on Battersea High Street, which primarily serves residents from the estates and provides an extremely broad range of services and assistance programmes for all members of the community.

[52][53] Another incredibly well-established umbrella initiative that operates extensively in the area is the Battersea United Charities (BUC), which was founded in 1641 and is based just south of the estates on Lavender Hill.

[61][62] In 1964, Alan Johnson also recalled the "huge Booth's Gin Distillery" "opposite the estate" (that closed around this time) when he was living in Pitt House, Maysoule Road, and the closure of the Carlo Gatti ice depot and warehouses at Ransome's Dock in the late 1970s and early 1980s were other similarly detrimental developments.

[27][63] The socio-economics effect of this de-industrialisation was documented in a 1981 Thames News report focusing on the estates, claiming that unemployment had risen by 69% from 1980 to 1981 and there were 13,000 people out of work within the Borough.

[66] Michael Fuller described this era by asserting that "the buildings may have changed but the people didn't" and the Winstanley as "an area of unemployment, extreme poverty and social deprivation" when recalling his experiences policing the estates in his memoirs.

[80] It is believed by governmental sources that high pollution levels measured at two local schools and on the Estates are primarily due to considerable building works and transport activities occurring within the ward.

[89] So Solid Crew were one of the first to draw attention to supposed incidents of gun crime that occurred on the estates in the 1990s and 2000s, although notable members (including Ashley Walters) were also accused of glamorising violence by being convicted or charged with many offences involving firearms.

The Doddington and Rollo, Henry Prince and Winstanley estates were all mentioned as some of the "five most difficult to manage" within the Borough in the Kinghan Report, which was commissioned by Wandsworth Council in the immediate aftermath of the riots.

[96][97][98] As previously mentioned, the close proximity of the estates to shopping facilities around Clapham Junction was an important reason as to why groups of looters first began to gather there.

[102] Following recent developments, the regeneration proposal was officially approved by Wandsworth Council in February 2020 but still awaits final confirmation from London Mayor Sadiq Khan.

[103] Although the Mayor has campaigned against private council estate redevelopments that do not provide an acceptable level of replacement social housing and condemned a similar scheme in Battersea Power Station for those reasons, the outcome of this final review is still uncertain.

[105][106][107] A limited number of residents (mostly in Ganley Court) have avowedly opposed demolition and renewal, objecting to the size of the 32-storey towers that are planned to replace the current Estates.

[108] Marsha De Cordova also raised fears over potential gentrification when she secured a debate in the Houses of Parliament on 22 March 2019, citing her fears over the lack of council homes in the new scheme (3 out of the extra 2,000 homes) with the then-Under-Secretary for Housing, Communities and Local Government Rishi Sunak choosing not to comment on the issue and praising the Conservative leadership of Wandsworth Council.

As previously mentioned, the 1965 film Up the Junction, directed by Ken Loach, shows many of the Victorian terraces that the Winstanley and York Road Estates replaced, along with some of the newer-build concrete blocks.

Loach again used the estates and surrounding area as much of the backdrop for his 1966 drama Cathy Come Home and 1967 film Poor Cow, which similarly dealt with social issues and deprivation.