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Heygate Estate redevelopment: just 79 social rented units out of a total 2,535 new homes

Utterly speechless. I'd think it were malicious but the cock up with the PDF suggests Southwark are just plain incompetent. Someone must have an explanation for this. Even if palms were crossed with Silver they would have bothered thinking up a cover story. It was never going to go unquestioned. Are they that arrogant?
 
editor said:
The scale may not be as large in Brixton, but it adds up to the same thing once you've lost your home.

Something like a third of the Guinness Trust residents at the back of the Moorlands Estate were made homeless not so long ago by another of these 'partnership' deals, and there's more to come, no doubt. :(
Click to expand...

The council say this in the mentioned report:

“The new development will make a significant contribution to the future of Brixton,”

>sort of standard paragraph sentence I hate. (translated it means a shiny new mostly private estate will attract well off people whose demands of the area will be very different from the current bunch who live there )
 
spanglechick said:
just those sheer numbers make me feel physically sick. talk about social cleansing... what's happening in brixton seems sometimes debatable, too many small cuts.

this is just... monstrous.


two and a half thousand new homes for wealthy londoners... a tiny, tiny fraction of them for the people who have traditionally lived in the area.
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Talking to my folks about this on sunday. They were evicted from a 2-room flat in Deacon Street, Elephant & Castle, to make way for what became the Heygate (Deacon Way, the internal access road, being built partly on the site of the former Deacon St). They were at a loss as to why Southwark would do this, given the amount of CPOs they apparently issued in the late '60s to clear the ground for the Heygate. I then explained to them exactly who benefits from this clusterfuck (including private landlords renting to former council tenants), and both of them reckoned the new situation is a return to the post-war years, more or less: Private landlords being able to take advantage of the massive imbalance of demand over supply, and complaisant councils doing fuck-all to support their tenants beyond the absolute minimum.
 
editor said:
The scale may not be as large in Brixton, but it adds up to the same thing once you've lost your home.

Something like a third of the Guinness Trust residents at the back of the Moorlands Estate were made homeless not so long ago by another of these 'partnership' deals, and there's more to come, no doubt. :(
Click to expand...

Cressingham Gardens on Tulse Hill is at the start of a year-long "consultation exercise" (for which read "extended propaganda exercise") to convince us to allow one of these partnership deals. Fortunately, sentiment is currently strongly against it, but after the propaganda...?
And Lambeth have a history of "carry on regardless" of tenant's wishes too, so I'm not setting a great deal of store by consultation, or any promises they make.
 
if you get a chance, read the 'heygate is worth how much?' piece too (we've included links to a number of other people's articles too, as collectively, we've all brought up all sorts of issues (sorry, that's on peoples republic of southwark website)
 
pros said:
if you get a chance, read the 'heygate is worth how much?' piece too (we've included links to a number of other people's articles too, as collectively, we've all brought up all sorts of issues (sorry, that's on peoples republic of southwark website)
Click to expand...
Could you post a link please?
 
This is outrageous, but the outcome has been predictable, right from about 10/12 years ago when the first plans to 'regenerate' E&C were published. I was born in the Heygate in 1977 and it fucking breaks my heart that these flats - high quality, well appointed, decent sized rooms, central heating, designed to last for 40-50 years - are now lying empty ready to be destroyed. People could still be living there now. Demolition isn't even going to start until 2015 at the earliest. Southwark Council have been fleeced. It shouldn't even be legal to offer such a low provision of social/affordable housing.

We should reoccupy the estate.
 
I live directly opposite it, what they've left there is an absolute blight and the derogation will only speed up as the increasing number of broken windows are left unchecked. A few flats on our street have been burgled recently. Regardless of what future plans are (and it's not going to be to let people back in) they should just bulldoze the lot.

How they got to this stage without actually having a plan of what to do. They seem to be making it up as they go along. A lot of people suffered distress being moved out and to then leave the buildings there borded up to rot for years is offensive.
 
Where's the money coming from for this, btw? It's not £1.5bn of public money being used to reduce social housing stock by a couple of thousand, is it?!!
 
editor said:
It's here:
http://www.peoplesrepublicofsouthwark.co.uk/hold-news/news/2744-heygate-is-worth-how-much
Click to expand...
One of the most depressing points in that, is this:

For the last year and a half alone, hundreds of Southwark residents spent an inordinate amount of time attending various 'consultation' meetings and events and meetings with the council and councillors, too often pleading for basic policy compliance, providing their professional expert knowledge and the unique knowledge and experience of the area for free in return for, as it turns out, absolutely nothing.
Click to expand...
 
The 'consultation' in action:


Residents and objectors refused entry to the Heygate masterplan planning application hearing. The largest planning application ever submitted in Southwark was heard in a room with total capacity for just 100 people. Members of the public waited for 3 hours to try and get into this supposedly public meeting, where they were told they would be admitted on a one-in, one-out basis.
Click to expand...

Councillor Bukola tells objectors there is no room for them to enter the 'public' hearing, and that there are already 'a sufficient number of objectors in the room'...
Click to expand...
 
thanks, editor & equation girl. if any of you are around tonight, 7pm, join us at the southwark council offices, 160 tooley street? (i know it's terribly short notice), as tonight they'll be 'considering' the second part of the planning application for the heygate.
 
salem said:
I live directly opposite it, what they've left there is an absolute blight and the derogation will only speed up as the increasing number of broken windows are left unchecked. A few flats on our street have been burgled recently. Regardless of what future plans are (and it's not going to be to let people back in) they should just bulldoze the lot.

How they got to this stage without actually having a plan of what to do. They seem to be making it up as they go along. A lot of people suffered distress being moved out and to then leave the buildings there borded up to rot for years is offensive.
Click to expand...

There have been plans aplenty. Originally the intention (whether or not either the council or the developers ever intended to stick to it) was to partially-decant, then demolish and re-build in stages. What actually happened seems to be being blamed on wicked developers and a spectacularly-inept council, but really, how can we be sure this wasn't a case of one hand washing the other?
 
the clerk or whoever said "we weren't expecting to completely sell out" in that first vid in ed's link! :facepalm:
 
pros said:
thanks, editor & equation girl. if any of you are around tonight, 7pm, join us at the southwark council offices, 160 tooley street? (i know it's terribly short notice), as tonight they'll be 'considering' the second part of the planning application for the heygate.
Click to expand...
I can't make it but please come back and keep us updated.

I hope by posting it on my blog I've helped at least spread the word about this a tiny bit - the post has already been read over 5,000 times today.
 
I'd seen that the agreement had been leaked, but didn't know the details until I saw this thread.

WTF?!!!

The Oakmayne Plaza site next door sold for £40m on April 2011.

The Heygate is 22 hectares, Oakmayne's site is a mere 1.5 ha.
 
A lot of this was covered in The Standard recently: http://www.standard.co.uk/news/lond...le-housing-8455168.html?origin=internalSearch

"The Heygate Estate was emptied in 2008 and the tenants were promised new homes. However, all but 15 have been rehoused in older properties...
Southwark MP and Lib-Dem deputy leader Simon Hughes was among about 200 people at the meeting, which ended in the early hours yesterday. Mr Hughes said he supported the regeneration of the estate but was against the plans because just 25 per cent of the homes will be affordable.
He added: “The council has a policy that 35 per cent of all housing should be affordable. They are breaking their own rules.” He also criticised planners for meeting in a room too small to hold all those who turned up.
Objectors’ spokesman Jerry Flynn said: “Over 850 social rented units will be lost, and the so-called affordable rents are way beyond what most people who live in Southwark can afford. Southwark has more than 17,000 people on its housing waiting list — but none of them will be living on the new Heygate.”

There is no mention of the scandalously pitiful price the council sold the land.
 
There's a piece about this on the BBC's site (with a link to urban75) and on the New Stateman's site.

Here's what some of the new development will look like:

heygate-_633.jpg


heygate_631.jpg


http://www.bdonline.co.uk/news/heygate-sold-for-£50m-council-blunder-reveals/5049823.article
 
This is being covered later on Vanessa Feltz programme on Radio London. She said '1/4 of the homes on the Heygate will be affordable housing, doesn't sound like social cleansing to me'. I suppose the confusion here is the difference between social and affordable housing.
 
ash said:
This is being covered later on Vanessa Feltz programme on Radio London. She said '1/4 of the homes on the Heygate will be affordable housing, doesn't sound like social cleansing to me'. I suppose the confusion here is the difference between social and affordable housing.
Click to expand...

'affordable' is bullshit these days. Affordable if you're on a £40,000 a year salary maybe.
 
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