This from Mick Hall's blog -

"East Enders ... is set in East London, an area which has tens of thousands of decent law abiding council and housing association tenants, yet not a single character portrayed in the show lives in a council or housing association property, they all either own their own home or rent from the private sector. (What worker could afford to buy a home in east London today?)
"This lack of reality is not a mere oversight, there has been a sea change in the BBC’s portrayal of working class people since East Enders first appeared on our screens, and today the show undoubtedly reflects this.
"When East Enders first hit the TV screens, out went the mockney middle class actors who portrayed working class people as stereotypes and spoke like Dick Van Dyke in the movie Mary Poppin’s. The producers of East Enders searched out actors who came from a working class background. Not anymore, if you look at any of the characters who have come into the programe in recent years they are almost exclusively played by middle class actors, this is especially true of the children. Market trader and fly by the seat of his pants businessman, Ian Beal’s, has kids who all speak as if they went to an English public school or County grammar, despite in the programe supposedly attending the local comp. The same is true of the Asian family in the programe, even the villains are now played by middle class actors.
"These days, the only time council tenants are portrayed on TV is as victims or villians, living on sink estates, surrounded by joy riders, lumpen drug dealers, violent hoodies, benefit fraudsters, and various other forms of supposed low life."