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Lambeth's plans to demolish Cressingham Gardens and other estates without the consent of residents

Brix69 said:
Reading through this report makes clear the deception and downright bullsh*t of Lambeth's 'cooperative council' claim. The fact that councillors can act in this way without censure is totally wrong.
Congratulations to the people who stood up to the dishonesty and blight they've imposed on local residents.
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Can they do this without censure? Can we complain about them generally in some way - as Lambeth residents/council tax payers? I'm furious they seem to be able to do what they want in fucking over their own residents - at our expense - I'm sure others must be furious too. How do we complain?
 
friendofdorothy said:
Can they do this without censure? Can we complain about them generally in some way - as Lambeth residents/council tax payers? I'm furious they seem to be able to do what they want in fucking over their own residents - at our expense - I'm sure others must be furious too. How do we complain?
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This.
 
friendofdorothy said:
Congrats! what ever lambeth do next this - throws a huge spanner in their works and will hopefully give you all a break in the meanwhile.
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What they'll probably do next is appeal - not because they have much of a case, but because this humiliates them - followed by (when the appeal fails) trying to work out a way to either revisit consultation while still extracting the result they're after, or effectively ignoring Mrs Justice Laing's ruling and trying to carry on "as normal" - something we won't allow them to get away with. What Lambeth haven't yet come to appreciate is that we're just getting started on them. ;)
 
friendofdorothy said:
Can they do this without censure? Can we complain about them generally in some way - as Lambeth residents/council tax payers? I'm furious they seem to be able to do what they want in fucking over their own residents - at our expense - I'm sure others must be furious too. How do we complain?
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It depends what we mean by censure. Censure by their conciliar peers "in chamber" is rare, even for really egregious violations of human decency. As individuals,and as communities, we can of course censure through the withholding of our votes - I'd suggest mass voting for minority parties such as the Greens or TUSC.
In terms of complaining, we already know that direct complaint is directly...ignored. I'm going to look into whether we can get the Local Government Ombudsman involved, but I'm not holding my breath.
 
friendofdorothy said:
me complaining on my own feels like whistling in the wind. We need to do it on mass.

Lambeth concillors were even smug about CG when they were asking for my vote in April. They have got to fear for their seats if thousands of us complain. I don't even know where to begin with this - ideas anyone?
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A few:
An official petition.
En masse (silent, glowering) attendance at councillors' surgeries.
Letters/e-mails by people to their ward councillors advising of their decision to not vote for Labour at the next set of local elections.
The actual carrying-out of the above by voting in minority parties in as many seats as possible come 2018.
Publicising your discontent as and when you feel like it - back when the Lib-Dems held the balance of power, there were 2 or 3 letters every week in the SLP regarding what a shoddy job the Tory/Lib-Dem coalition in Lambeth were doing, and it took its' toll.
 
I've found this on their website. No idea if councillors will hear of this but hey ho. Perhaps if they receive hundreds of complaints from people all over Lambeth it might reach them

Make a complaint - guide | Lambeth Council

I said in my complaint against Lambeth Councillors
I am pleased to see the residents of Cressingham Gardens won their appeal against Lambeth Council in the courts today. I am sickened that my elected representatives of my Co-operative council put its own residents through such a stressful and expensive process, while presumably wasting public/council tax payers money on doing so.
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I hope you abandon the idea of demolishing a popular and sucessful estate and now get on and do repairs to the estate that you are legally bound to do as freeholder and landlord.
I hope you now go through the correct consultation process that you shough have adhered to in the first place. I hope you waste no further public money on dragging your own tenants through the courts at any future date.
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Fingers said:
I have Tweeted @cllrmattbennett politely asking for his resignation
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So I followed a couple of links from his twitter page that you've linked to and found this:
Save Our Library!

The Upper Norwood Library is an excellent example of how good local libraries can be, how well they can serve their communities. We need to find a way to put the library on a secure footing, out of the hands of politicians and in the hands of the community, so that it has (at least) another 111 years ahead of it.

Like turn it in to a leisure centre?
 
Tory boy Tim is looking to capitalise on the situation. Because the Tories REALLY cared about council housing. Oh wait. They're the fuckers that got us into this situation in the first place.
FROM THE LEADER OF THE OPPOSITION, LAMBETH COUNCIL: Cllr. TIM BRIGGS, Conservative Group Leader, Clapham Common Ward

For Immediate Release: 24 Nov 2015


Cressingham Gardens Judicial Review

The High Court judicial review proceedings today ruled that Lambeth Council acted unlawfully in not properly consulting residents regarding its proposed demolition and redevelopment of the Cressingham Gardens estate.


Previous Consultations

In June this year, at the Scrutiny Committee call-in meeting of the decision to close Loughborough Junctionin Brixton, I argued that Lambeth Council’s consultations had dealt with residents in a disrespectful and inhuman manner and that all decisions using evidence from flawed consultations should be returned to cabinet until better procedures were adopted. I still believe this to to be the case.

I am calling for all decisions on other estates to be referred back to cabinet. This includes the flawed consultation on the demolition of the Westbury Estate in Clapham, in which the council has refused to countenance building on the green space available to create more high-density housing and insisting instead on demolishing the estate.

At the full council meeting in July 2015 I said that the council’s own failure to carry out effective repairs on Cressingham Gardens had provided it with an excuse to demolish the estate. Forcing residents to live in disrepair, then forcing the demolition of their homes by claiming there are no funds to carry out repairs, is unjustifiable and immoral. In Conservative-run Wandsworth, consultations with residents are extensive and respectful.

In the Opposition Statement at the last full council meeting on Wednesday 18th November, I said that this was‘an administration with a cartoon sense of its own righteousness, but no grown up sense of what it actually believes in.’

Councillor Calls for Resignations


I call on Cllr Lib Peck, the Leader of this Labour administration, to resign, and for Cllr Matthew Bennett, the cabinet member in charge of housing, to do the same.

Cllr Tim Briggs
Lambeth Council
Olive Morris House
Brixton Hill, SW2
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editor said:
Tory boy Tim is looking to capitalise on the situation. Because the Tories REALLY cared about council housing. Oh wait. They're the fuckers that got us into this situation in the first place.
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editor said:
Tory boy Tim is looking to capitalise on the situation. Because the Tories REALLY cared about council housing. Oh wait. They're the fuckers that got us into this situation in the first place.
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They dont give a shit about housing but he's right to call on them to resign. They should.
 
ViolentPanda said:
A few:
An official petition.
En masse (silent, glowering) attendance at councillors' surgeries.
Letters/e-mails by people to their ward councillors advising of their decision to not vote for Labour at the next set of local elections.
The actual carrying-out of the above by voting in minority parties in as many seats as possible come 2018.
Publicising your discontent as and when you feel like it - back when the Lib-Dems held the balance of power, there were 2 or 3 letters every week in the SLP regarding what a shoddy job the Tory/Lib-Dem coalition in Lambeth were doing, and it took its' toll.
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Not at all the same thing but just to say that the sort of methods VP lists above do seem to have worked here in Loughborough Junction (the issue Tim Briggs mentions at the start of his email). I have to admit that our little victory surprised me but there you go - think the sheer volume of emails the relevant councillors were finding in their inboxes every morning had a cumulative force, maybe just the power of mass annoyingness.

Edit: Plus getting some embarrassing coverage from newspapers and radio etc. I think embarrassment plus annoyingness was the winning combo.
 
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bimble said:
Not at all the same thing but just to say that the sort of methods VP lists above do seem to have worked here in Loughborough Junction (the issue Tim Briggs mentions at the start of his email). I have to admit that our little victory surprised me but there you go - think the sheer volume of emails the relevant councillors were finding in their inboxes every morning had a cumulative force, maybe just the power of mass annoyingness.
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Our councillors absolutely hate being reminded that they need to preserve at least a semblance of democracy. :)
 
At the risk of attracting everybody's ire, I have a certain amount of sympathy for Lambeth here.

Community consultation is often the first thing to go out of the window on a large regeneration project and Lambeth and its councillors shouldn't be excused for clearly attempting to rig the system to get the result they wanted - and for which they've rightly been pulled up. That the voice of the residents will now (hopefully) be heard and considered is a good thing.

But on the other hand - what are they supposed to do? They have housing targets handed down from above to meet and national planning policy to comply with (as well as the emotional imperative of providing more houses for the community), and rapidly declining financial and human resources to be able to do so.

I appreciate that their proposals would not have created many more social housing units - but in their position they clearly thought that getting into bed with developers on this scheme was their only option. The sad fact is that estates like Cressingham Gardens and Central Hill are far more attractive to developers than estates like Roupell Park or Tulse Hill nearby.

The current situation is: land values in London are insane; we need to build more houses, otherwise the city will be polarised completely between the rich and the poor (with the middle shunted off to Croydon and beyond); local authorities have no money and increasingly only the remnants of their council housing estates to use as assets to finance/leverage large schemes.

Something has to give.
 
technical said:
At the risk of attracting everybody's ire, I have a certain amount of sympathy for Lambeth here.

Community consultation is often the first thing to go out of the window on a large regeneration project and Lambeth and its councillors shouldn't be excused for clearly attempting to rig the system to get the result they wanted - and for which they've rightly been pulled up. That the voice of the residents will now (hopefully) be heard and considered is a good thing.

But on the other hand - what are they supposed to do? They have housing targets handed down from above to meet and national planning policy to comply with (as well as the emotional imperative of providing more houses for the community), and rapidly declining financial and human resources to be able to do so.

I appreciate that their proposals would not have created many more social housing units - but in their position they clearly thought that getting into bed with developers on this scheme was their only option. The sad fact is that estates like Cressingham Gardens and Central Hill are far more attractive to developers than estates like Roupell Park or Tulse Hill nearby.

The current situation is: land values in London are insane; we need to build more houses, otherwise the city will be polarised completely between the rich and the poor (with the middle shunted off to Croydon and beyond); local authorities have no money and increasingly only the remnants of their council housing estates to use as assets to finance/leverage large schemes.

Something has to give.
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Problem is, councils can't be trusted to even profit from their housing stock. Southwark sold the Heygate estate for peanuts. Some figures from a New Statesman article:

ETA: I didn't realise the New Statesman article links to U75?!?
 
technical said:
At the risk of attracting everybody's ire, I have a certain amount of sympathy for Lambeth here.

Community consultation is often the first thing to go out of the window on a large regeneration project and Lambeth and its councillors shouldn't be excused for clearly attempting to rig the system to get the result they wanted - and for which they've rightly been pulled up. That the voice of the residents will now (hopefully) be heard and considered is a good thing.

But on the other hand - what are they supposed to do? They have housing targets handed down from above to meet and national planning policy to comply with (as well as the emotional imperative of providing more houses for the community), and rapidly declining financial and human resources to be able to do so.

I appreciate that their proposals would not have created many more social housing units - but in their position they clearly thought that getting into bed with developers on this scheme was their only option. The sad fact is that estates like Cressingham Gardens and Central Hill are far more attractive to developers than estates like Roupell Park or Tulse Hill nearby.

The current situation is: land values in London are insane; we need to build more houses, otherwise the city will be polarised completely between the rich and the poor (with the middle shunted off to Croydon and beyond); local authorities have no money and increasingly only the remnants of their council housing estates to use as assets to finance/leverage large schemes.

Something has to give.
Click to expand...
private developemnt can take care of itself - there is no shortage of very expensive private housing. There is a huge shortage of council, socially rented and otherwise low-cost housing and the CG scheme provided very little of that. If they were talking about doubling the number of council flats that would be different - but they were not. Lambeth has a legal responsiblity to house some people - it has no business getting into bed with developers to produce luxury flats. If they want to encourage private development it could do so via planning controls.

I've said it before but the councils own figures are there are over 200 empty properties that could be brought back into use. Thats just the one's they count. There are empty properties all over the place with great big anti-squatting metal shutters on them so no one can even live in them in the mean time. In other area councils sell dilapidted properties at a low cost to people who want to live in them and can demonstrate they will do them up to a decent standard.
 
friendofdorothy said:
PS I have no sympathy for Lambeth council at all - co operative council my arse! Not fulfilling their duties as landlord and freeholder, not applying their own processes legally. Then using our public money fighting an appeal against their own residents ffs!
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Word!
 
technical said:
At the risk of attracting everybody's ire, I have a certain amount of sympathy for Lambeth here.

Community consultation is often the first thing to go out of the window on a large regeneration project and Lambeth and its councillors shouldn't be excused for clearly attempting to rig the system to get the result they wanted - and for which they've rightly been pulled up. That the voice of the residents will now (hopefully) be heard and considered is a good thing.

But on the other hand - what are they supposed to do? They have housing targets handed down from above to meet and national planning policy to comply with (as well as the emotional imperative of providing more houses for the community), and rapidly declining financial and human resources to be able to do so.
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They were already meeting their central government-set obligations. Part of the justification for regeneration is to meet their own locally-set promise of providing a thousand extra homes "for *social rent". A promise made for political rather than practical reasons.

*Debatable, as they already appear to be amending that to "1000 new homes, some forsocialrent"

I appreciate that their proposals would not have created many more social housing units - but in their position they clearly thought that getting into bed with developers on this scheme was their only option. The sad fact is that estates like Cressingham Gardens and Central Hill are far more attractive to developers than estates like Roupell Park or Tulse Hill nearby.
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Sorry, but Lambeth were and are well-aware that doing a horizontal tango with private capital wasn't their only option, merely the most politically and economically-convenient. We know this not only from previous utterances, but from reading their recent "Homes for Lambeth" document* justifying the decision to form a Special Purpose Vehicle.

The current situation is: land values in London are insane; we need to build more houses, otherwise the city will be polarised completely between the rich and the poor (with the middle shunted off to Croydon and beyond); local authorities have no money and increasingly only the remnants of their council housing estates to use as assets to finance/leverage large schemes.

Something has to give.
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The polarisation is already a fact of life, as is apparent in the appalling contempt with which estate-dwellers have been and are being treated.
 
friendofdorothy said:
private developemnt can take care of itself - there is no shortage of very expensive private housing. There is a huge shortage of council, socially rented and otherwise low-cost housing and the CG scheme provided very little of that. If they were talking about doubling the number of council flats that would be different - but they were not. Lambeth has a legal responsiblity to house some people - it has no business getting into bed with developers to produce luxury flats. If they want to encourage private development it could do so via planning controls.
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Yep.
part of the original beauty of local authority development of social housing was that it helped point up what a racket private development was and is - most LA developments of the '50, '60s and '70s came in cheaper than their private sector contemporaries, even when Parker Morris standards were in force - so the fact that LAs are now seeking to justify using the private sector flies in the face of experience and of economic "best practice".

I've said it before but the councils own figures are there are over 200 empty properties that could be brought back into use. Thats just the one's they count. There are empty properties all over the place with great big anti-squatting metal shutters on them so no one can even live in them in the mean time. In other area councils sell dilapidted properties at a low cost to people who want to live in them and can demonstrate they will do them up to a decent standard.
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Used to be called "homesteading", that, and councils would even give people who took on the properties grants, and loans of plant.
 
Because I think technical is very brave: Found out recently that the Mayor's current target for new homes to be built in Lambeth over the next 10 years is 15,594. That's more than 1,500 each year, which is a lot of flats.
https://www.london.gov.uk/sites/default/files/2598_Redacted.pdf

Also though, the block currently being constructed up here in Loughborough Junction (a few footsteps from Brixton Station Rd) went to the trouble of painting over this little graffito the very next day after it appeared.
IMG_1996.JPG
 
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bimble said:
Because I think technical is very brave: Found out recently that the Mayor's current target for new homes to be built in Lambeth over the next 10 years is 15,594. That's more than 1,500 each year, which is a lot of flats.
https://www.london.gov.uk/sites/default/files/2598_Redacted.pdf

Also though, the block currently being constructed up here in Loughborough Junction (a few footsteps from Brixton Station Rd) went to the trouble of painting over this little graffito the very next day after it appeared.
View attachment 80028
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It sounds like a lot, until you work out that just to keep pace with London "Right to Buy" sales, we need about 2-3 times that built. Add in just "natural" expansion of London's population over supply, and the current build rate (almost 20,000 starts in 2013) doesn't satisfy that demand either, so what we have is a continued expansion of demand over supply.
Perhaps Buy-to-Let taxation will put a brake on that demand, but I'm not holding my breath.
 
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