Has everyone seen Chuka's Facebook post from yesterday?
"I have lived in Lambeth all my life and used to visit the Cressingham Gardens estate area to see childhood friends back in the day. I have visited the estate many times before and after being elected MP for the constituency.
It was whilst visiting the estate shortly before the last election that it became obvious to me just how poor a state some of the properties were in and that major work was unavoidable if we were to bring all properties up to a Decent Homes standard so they are comfortable, safe and warm. That work would undoubtedly cause stress and disruption to some residents.
Lambeth Council rightly aims to achieve that Decent Homes standard across the borough. With that in mind and given it has had its budget cut by more than half by the Tory/LibDem Coalition Government, the Labour run Council has sought to work out what to do.
A consultation was carried out last year and a range of options were presented to residents on the estate. There were a number of deficiencies with the consultation which I took up with the Council. One option presented to residents – of simply refurbishing and renovating existing homes on the estate - with hindsight was clearly not going achievable, nor would it have been an equitable use of social housing funds across the borough. But the Council's motivation - ensuring decent homes for people on the estate - is something I wholeheartedly support.
The Council also want to deliver extra council housing, given our need for new council housing is so acute. There are more than 20,000 households on Lambeth’s waiting list, and we need to build more housing not just protect existing stock. So the Council not only seeks to ensure there are the same number of council homes on the Cressingham Gardens estate after any redevelopment but it wants to build more council homes on the estate too.
One of the challenges the Council has is that Lambeth is very densely populated and there is little brownfield land to build more council homes on, so it has chosen to build more homes on existing estates – good for Lambeth as a whole but less welcome for some of the leaseholders who live on the estates affected .The Guardian’s Dave Hill gives a fair assessment of this and the varying points of view about this redevelopment on his excellently researched blog here:
http://www.theguardian.com/…/a-time-for-trust-at-the-cressi….
There are a range of views on the proposed redevelopment of the estate - there is no consensus among residents. I have had some tell me that they want the whole estate to be knocked down and rebuilt, some support the partial redevelopment, others insist that all homes be refurbished/renovated. Many Leaseholders and landlords on the estate understandably want renovation but many tenants support partial or whole redevelopment of the estate. The Save Cressingham Gardens campaign, which speaks for some but does not speak for a significant number of residents - and has endorsed the Green Party (I will return to that below) in the General Election - wants the renovation/refurbishment of all homes.
For my own part, I oppose knocking down the whole estate and starting again, but I do not oppose redeveloping part of the estate. As the local MP, I have had intensive discussions and made many representations to the council both on the consultation process and the proposals themselves. I have held a coffee afternoon on the estate to take views on the issue and have had a lot of correspondence with residents on the estate on the proposed plans.
I subsequently set out four criteria to be met - they are my red lines. These are that: every single home on Cressingham Gardens must meet the Decent Home Standards; the estate must have the same number or a greater number of council homes (that means real council homes, not simply ‘affordable’ homes); tenants should be offered a new tenancy on a new or refurbished property on the estate; because leaseholders might view options such as shared ownership as a step back, they should be offered something more than this if they wish to remain on the estate; and, if any leaseholders choose to sell their properties rather than remain on the estate, they must be treated fairly.
Because the option of renovating homes on the estate without also redeveloping part of the estate cannot be delivered, some redevelopment will have to take place. This means new council housing can be built as part of Lambeth’s target to build 1000 extra council homes.
A plan that redevelops the estate following the above criteria will deliver better housing for council tenants, more council housing for people in our area who need it, and will be fair to leaseholders – around 14 of whom might be affected by partial redevelopment – who should be treated fairly. This is my clear view of the situation.
Last week, I spoke of the need for a Labour government at the Evening Standard’s London Hustings. I was opposed by Grant Shapps, Mark Reckless, Lynne Featherstone and Natalie Bennett, the leader of the Green Party. One of her supporters from the Save Cressingham Gardens campaign asked for the panel's views on social housing in London, referring to the situation on Cressingham.
Ms Bennett visited the estate last year as part of her party's election campaigning. I do not recall the Green Party expressing any interest in Cressingham Gardens until when the Save Cressingham Gardens campaign was established in the last two years. They were certainly nowhere to be seen on the estate at the last election and, yet, as the local elections in 2014 and General Election this year honed into view, they have taken an ever increasing interest in the estate. In so doing, they have shamelessly and disgracefully sought to use the future of an estate for party political purposes - they have used what should not be a party political matter to bash the Labour Council.
At the Evening Standard hustings,in her answer to the question her supporter put to us Ms Bennett even branded what the Council are doing on Cressingham as social "cleansing" . We have many survivors living in Lambeth who have fled cleansing around the world - they will take grave offence at the use of such language in a situation such as this given their own harrowing experiences of "cleansing". It is correct to say that there is a housing crisis in our area, but action is required from political parties to fix it, not throwing around irresponsible language and undeliverable promises in a General Election campaign.
Natalie Bennett’s party has opposed every single project that will increase council housing in our borough. The Green Party claims it wants to build more homes but, as Ms Bennett's recent interview on LBC illustrated, they have no idea how much their plans to build more homes will cost or where they will get the money from:
http://www.lbc.co.uk/incredibly-awkward-interview-with-nata… .
And, even if their sums did add up, they have not said where they could be built in Lambeth. Instead all we have seen is grandstanding and party political point scoring of the highest order - causing even more worry and stress for people who live here - which will not deliver one extra council home in our area.
It is also wholly unacceptable that some of those associating themselves with the Save Cressingham Gardens campaign - which now works closely with Lambeth Green Party - have made threats to a local councillor in the ward where Cressingham is located. This has been reported to and is now being investigated by the police.
There is clearly a lot of anti-politics sentiment that we all need to address and, yes, the failure of the political system to deliver more affordable homes understandably has helped fuel this. But the answer to anti-politics is grown up politics not cynical and irresponsible politics that seeks to take advantage of the very real and complex problems in one of the most deprived local council wards in the country. - C."
https://www.facebook.com/ChukaUmunnaMP/posts/10153259886394709
