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The future version proposes a new park, as well as semi-private courtyards for individual blocks of flats. It will have a mixture of tenures, of owners and renters, instead of the monoculture of council flats originally built.

It will have good connections with surrounding streets, from which it is currently cut off. The busy road that now slashes through the estate will be tamed.

Mistakes of the past, such as the use of long access balconies, will be avoided.

The designs are on the austere side, but they are vastly preferable to the Seventies originals.

It is possible to believe it could be a fine example of what its architect Alex Lifschutz calls "a modern suburb". It is only 15 minutes by train from London Bridge, and there are good schools nearby. This relative paradise, however, depends on funding, which depends on the ability of the developer Berkeley Homes to raise enough money from selling homes to pay for the rebuild.

As we all know these are not the best times for raising cash from house sales, and no one knows when things will get better.

Berkeley Homes says the whole project will take 15-20 years.

Meanwhile buildings will be demolished, leaving open, undeveloped spaces which could harbour the sort of anti-social behaviour that currently blights the place.

Berkeley Homes says it is "looking at" temporary uses for this land, and it is essential that it puts them in place.

The original residents of the Ferrier Estate remember a good place to live, with community spirit and good-quality flats. They blame its decline on mismanagement and neglect by the local authority.

The same thing could happen again with comprehensive rebuilding - that massive investment in construction is undermined by bad management.

For the sake of the long-suffering residents of the Ferrier, and the huge sums invested in the place, the London borough of Greenwich and Berkeley Homes have to make sure that this does not happen again.