Southwark to demolish Aylesbury estate

http://society.guardian.co.uk/communities/story/0,16295,1575366,00.html

basically, southwark have been looking for a way of handing over the aylesbury to a housing association but were foiled when residents voted no a while back.
now they've found a way around that.
they've had surveys done which have declared the whole estate structurally unsound and in need of a lot of expensive work in order to continue to be liveable in. so expensive in fact that, conveniently, southwark have concluded it would cost more to sort it out than it would to demolish the whole thing, and sell it and the tenants off to a housing association.
the housing association will be looking to build some private homes on the site (it'll all tie in awfully well with the forthcoming elephant 'regeneration') so there won't be enough social housing to house all the current tenants and residents, meaning some of them will be shipped out to london's suburbs.
and none of this will require a residents' ballot to be held, thus removing the main problem for southwark.
cheeky fuckers!

edited to add: southwark have had discussions with odpm about this and have the support of miliband and harriet harman, btw.

kea said:

http://society.guardian.co.uk/communities/story/0,16295,1575366,00.html

basically, southwark have been looking for a way of handing over the aylesbury to a housing association but were foiled when residents voted no a while back.
now they've found a way around that.
they've had surveys done which have declared the whole estate structurally unsound and in need of a lot of expensive work in order to continue to be liveable in. so expensive in fact that, conveniently, southwark have concluded it would cost more to sort it out than it would to demolish the whole thing, and sell it and the tenants off to a housing association.
the housing association will be looking to build some private homes on the site (it'll all tie in awfully well with the forthcoming elephant 'regeneration') so there won't be enough social housing to house all the current tenants and residents, meaning some of them will be shipped out to london's suburbs.
and none of this will require a residents' ballot to be held, thus removing the main problem for southwark.
cheeky fuckers!

edited to add: southwark have had discussions with odpm about this and have the support of miliband and harriet harman, btw.

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The Aylesbury is the grimmest looking estate in London and I thought crime was horrendous there too. I would have thought people would have jumped to get out of there.

I know rengeration is usually a bad thing, but Elephant really is the worst place in London. A ex-pink now red shopping centre (with about two shops actually open) loads of really grim looking estates and a giant roundabout (with the only cool thing about the Elephant - That silver thing)

Knock it down and start again, I say.

i think the actual point is about consultation with tenants and residents, pacificocean. oh and the cheek of southwark in the way they've gone about this.

anyway, i'm not going to get into an argument about this, i posted this thread for william - i've known about this story for a few days but haven't been able to post it. was talking to william about it yesterday and he was keen on having a thread up.
so i await his arrival.

kea said:

i think the actual point is about consultation with tenants and residents, pacificocean. oh and the cheek of southwark in the way they've gone about this.

anyway, i'm not going to get into an argument about this, i posted this thread for william - i've known about this story for a few days but haven't been able to post it. was talking to william about it yesterday and he was keen on having a thread up.
so i await his arrival.

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Sorry, missed the point of the thread.

A council acting in a sneaky and underhand way? Never!

For more information, see:

Southwark's press release here

Reports going to Southwark's Executive Aylesbury Estate revised strategy

what do you think of it, rabbie?

I thought there had been plans to knock the Aylesbury down for years and years???

AFAIK the tennants have the right to say they don't wanna live under a HA don't they?

They can of course say they want the council to find somewhere else for them to live?

zenie said:

AFAIK the tennants ahve the right to sya they don't wanna live under a HA don't tey?

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it depends. with a stock transfer, yes, they have to have a vote. that's what scuppered the plan before. with this route, they don't have to have a vote. cunning eh.

They can of course say they want the council to find somewhere else for them to live?

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nope, not in this case. the idea is, the council washes their hands of the residents. the residents deal with the housing association. the only way of moving from whatever home they're allotted after the demolition is to seek a house swap.

Who's William?

kea said:

i think the actual point is about consultation with tenants and residents, pacificocean. oh and the cheek of southwark in the way they've gone about this.

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This stinks on so many levels.

Breaking up existing, long standing communities and moving out the poor, to effectively make more room for the rich will change this unique part of London for ever.

kea said:

edited to add: southwark have had discussions with odpm about this and have the support of miliband and harriet harman, btw.

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I live on, and am a Tenant in, a small estate a couple of streets away from the main Aylesbury. As far as I know, local residents have not in any way been meaningfully consulted!

I anticipate, without much positivity, the coverage in tomorow's South London Press, and in the Southwark News (out next Tuesday I think).

Today's Guardian reports (and probably the imminent local press coverage), echo Pacific Ocean's knee jerk reaction and false logic -- horrid archiitecture, crime ridden ghettos, THEREFORE it's fine and dandy to knock em all down, decant them all round the borough and in neighbouring boroughs and even maybe outlying or out of town boroughs, no guarentee of them being able to come back to whatever new estate replaces it (I need to check more detail on exactly what proportion of the new development will be social/affordable housing and what proportion private for profit 'apartments'), certainly no guarentee that the Government's fabled 'choice' will extend to any tenant choosing to remain a Council Tenant rather than having their tenancy enforcedly hived off to a Housing Association' (these days = disguised property company), no rent guarentees, no security of tenancy guarentees.

Pacific Ocean, for your information, in late 2001 all tenants on the Aylesbury took part in a vote to decide whether or not they thransferred their tenancies to a HA or 'social landlord' (which one not specified). It was known that then large funds to comprehensively refurbish the Estate were dependent on the outcome of the vote, and this dependancy was stressed in the 'yes' campaign, ie they were heavily blackmailed to vote yes to transfer. Yet 73% in a reasonably high turnout vote, voted No, and the estate and its architecture are not popular with most tenants, they are DESPARATE for it to be either refurbished or rebuilt.

Why do you think they voted no then?

Personally speaking, my small estate would have rather cheekily benefitted from a yes vore in 2001, despite not being entitled (as a fringe estate) to vote, because at that time extra money WOULD have come to us as well as the main Aylesbury (I doubt it will this time though).

Yet I was committedly against, and joined in the No campaign in a small way.

Why? Think about that.

Without an ABSOLUTE GUARENTEE that they will be allowed to stay as Council Tenants (or at least be granted a meaningful revote on that issue) I predict growing reisistance among Aylesbury Tenants once the implications of this scheme become more known.

My estate is for technical/administrative reasons counted as 'Fringe Aylesbury' ; it's in much better condition than the main estate despite being five years older, but could still do with some money being spent on it. Since 1997, the Aylesbury and satellites have had prospects of 'New Deal for Communities' money, European money, social regneration money etc., in large sums, being spent all over the estate and its neighbours. The money was lined up. Yet why has it not been spent? Because the Nu-Laybore, 'reform' (=privatisation)-obsessed Government, are ideologically set against spending money on improving or replacing large Council Estates unless they devolve from Council control. Tenants, however little they may love the Council and old crumbling troubled estates, do no want to lose their security of tenure. Result : impasse.

In fact I anticipate this latest scheme will not touch my small estate -- too many OAPs on it! And we've not been surveyed for habitability -- not due til the end of this year at the earliest. Plus the architecture is nicer ...

I'd appreciate it though if the fastiduous nose-turners-up of the Guardian ( Step forward, Jonathan Glancy! ) and other haters of Eastern European style slab architecture of the seventies, at least attempted to THINK about the wider political implications. Instead of ranting at the horrid architecture without even mentioning what my fellow tenants may actually want.

Make no mistake, this demolition scheme is almost certainly disguised privatisation -- something the 'horrid architecture' ranters rarely mention.

sorry william, for some reason that post has gone really funny on my screen


edit: nope, don't worry, it seems to have sorted itself out now. v odd.

kea said:

sorry william, for some reason that post has gone really funny on my screen

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Mine too

But now it's ok

kea said:

what do you think of it, rabbie?

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I haven't read the detailed papers, but from what I'd heard I couldn't justify spending over £300 million to "refurbish" buildings which probably still wouldn't have a life of more than 30 years, even if Southwark Housing could find that sort of money.

And there doesn't seem a flying fart of a chance for Central Government coming up with a scheme wholly within Local Authority tenure. ODPM officials and ministers all seem to have an irrational hatred of council housing.

Dunno what your source is for some of the claims - the papers going to Southwark's Executive next week make it clear that there would still be the same number of flats as social housing across the estate.

And the first moves of 500 families "shipped out to london's suburbs" would be to new housing association properties at Old Kent Road, Peckham and Nunhead - not the Gulags of Siberia surely.

People who will be understandably pissed off are the tenants and residents of the lower rise, lower density red brick blocks, which would have been kept under all the previous schemes - but should they have a veto???

Seems that this plan demolishes them in order to keep the density of the rest of the estate down - given that they are trying to cram in twice the number of flats there are at present.

lang rabbie said:

Dunno what your source is for some of the claims

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our staff reporters.
(story coming out tomorrow, damn Guardian got in there first )

btw, does anyone know what proportion of residents are owner-occupiers?

kea said:

btw, does anyone know what proportion of residents are owner-occupiers?

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I was wondering the same thing kea.

Surely they'll have to do cumpolsary purchase orders?

lang rabbie said:

I haven't read the detailed papers, but from what I'd heard I couldn't justify spending over £300 million to "refurbish" buildings which probably still wouldn't have a life of more than 30 years, even if Southwark Housing could find that sort of money.

And there doesn't seem a flying fart of a chance for Central Government coming up with a scheme wholly within Local Authority tenure. ODPM officials and ministers all seem to have an irrational hatred of council housing.

Dunno what your source is for some of the claims - the papers going to Southwark's Executive next week make it clear that there would still be the same number of flats as social housing across the estate.

And the first moves of 500 families "shipped out to london's suburbs" would be to new housing association properties at Old Kent Road, Peckham and Nunhead - not the Gulags of Siberia surely.

People who will be understandably pissed off are the tenants and residents of the lower rise, lower density red brick blocks, which would have been kept under all the previous schemes - but should they have a veto???

Seems that this plan demolishes them in order to keep the density of the rest of the estate down - given that they are trying to cram in twice the number of flats there are at present.

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Lang Rabbie -- awaiting more detailed information

Will respond fully to your points then.

Suffice to say, social housing does NOT equal Council Housing, which as you say the Government has an irrational hatred of (and in response to that hatred, I rationally hate them for it ).

New non-Council arrangements/new landlords generally equal higher rents and lower security of tenure. That's why there's resistace : without guarentees, this will continue.

More later.

kea said:

btw, does anyone know what proportion of residents are owner-occupiers?

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Low, very low on that estate. No precise figures though.

kea said:

sorry william, for some reason that post has gone really funny on my screen


edit: nope, don't worry, it seems to have sorted itself out now. v odd.

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Dodgy 'url' bit inadvertantly not deleted when I quoted your post, fucked everything over and three quarters of my text disappeared. Luckily I was able to edit and didn't lose all my work, phew!

Kid_Eternity said:

Who's William?

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lang rabbie said:

For more information, see:

Southwark's press release here

Reports going to Southwark's Executive Aylesbury Estate revised strategy

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Missed this post just now. Will check those links out in full later.

But read the press release and prepare for a rigged, blackmail-laden vote though! If there's one at all!

William of Walworth said:

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Kea said she was posting this for William. I wasn't sure whether I'd missed another thread so thought i'd ask but then you posted and it all became clear. Interestingly enough me and RO were talking about this last night (she lives nearish there).

<Racks brains to remember who RO is ... >

William of Walworth said:

If there's one at all!

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doesn't look like there'll be one - we have quotes from southwark staff to that effect.

William of Walworth said:

<Racks brains to remember who RO is ... >

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Sorry! RO is Random One (my other and better half).

kea said:

doesn't look like there'll be one - we have quotes from southwark staff to that effect.

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The Press Release linked to by lang rabbie is very close to lying then ...

KE -- cheers!

William of Walworth said:

The Press Release linked to by lang rabbie is very close to lying then ...

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it says "will be given the opportunity to have their say" - in jargonesque language this translates as "we'll hold tenant consultations and do leafletting etc, outsourced to a 'tenant-focussed' organsiation such as TPAS, but we won't hold an actual ballot cos we've cleared it with ODPM that we can get away with doing this without having one".

I have to disagree with you William.

There is an estate on the Wandsworth Road which was really rank and Lambeth transfered it over to HA. They done it up and you wouldn't recongnise it now.

I know they are transfered from being council tenants to HA, but as long as you aren't anti-social you still have a place for life.

PacificOcean said:

I have to disagree with you William.

There is an estate on the Wandsworth Road which was really rank and Lambeth transfered it over to HA. They done it up and you wouldn't recongnise it now.

I know they are transfered from being council tenants to HA, but as long as you aren't anti-social you still have a place for life.

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You're talking about a completely different circumstance, and scale.

I don't say ALL alternative 'social landlords' are bad, nor even that they're inevitably worse than the Council.

Besides, Lambeth is a very bad example -- as is popularly known, Southwark pay Lambeth to be crap, so that they look less bad themselves by comparison

Do you know the details of that transfer anyway? How much more rent are they paying? What are the specifics of their security guarentees (if any)?

And anyway, it's not just ME. Answer me this -- if a transfer is so likely to lead to such improvements, why are tenants so reluctant on so many estates, even bad ones, to vote for them? (When they're allowed to that is). Why did the Aylesbury vote against in 2001? Why are Southwark wriggling so suspiciously on there being a vote at all, now? Why are Heygate residents (by the Elephant) being denied a vote? Why are the Government, or Councils, so set on denying us our choice to remain with the Council?

Look at the record of transfer votes in recent times. Birmingham City Coucil organised an all-Council transfer vote recently, applying to all estates/tenants except one or two tiny specialist-accomodation ones.

Vote -- massively against, and I bet there's some shit estates in Brum.
There was a similar vote not so long ago accross Camden.

Think about that.