Move along now

The poorest in the capital are paying the price of London’s housing crisis as ‘social cleansing’ is implemented across estates in Boris Johnson’s regeneration scheme.

With luxury properties popping up in council estates across London, the reality of regeneration is working class people being edged out of the homes that were purposely built for them.

In a West Hendon estate where 680 homes are planned for demolition to make way for luxury private flats, residents could have to choose between rent increases or rehousing elsewhere in the country, or accept voluntary homelessness.

Unite Community coordinator, Pilgrim Tucker, said, “These are councils starved of cash that happen to be sitting on financially prosperous land. A vast amount of social housing is being lost to this profit-driven approach to the housing crisis.”

A small portion of the redeveloped housing is set aside as “affordable”, but many tenants will find themselves paying higher rent to their new private housing association landlord.

In addition, a number of these will be made intermediate or shared-ownership homes, resulting in an overall loss of social-rented homes.

In an article for the London Tenants Federation, one West Hendon resident described how his estate is being sold off.

“[The plans include] ÂŁ225,000 for one-bedroom flats, ÂŁ300,000 for two-bedroom flats and ÂŁ1-ÂŁ1.5m for a penthouse, presumably with ‘exclusive views’ of the precious Welsh Harp as the selling point – seemingly too good for the existing council tenants.

“To make matters worse,” he said, “existing council tenants who want to stay here would be expected to become housing association tenants with less security and higher rents than we have with the council.”

Councils are being pushed to their limits with cuts and the housing crisis, but destroying and privatising social housing is only fueling the desperation.

“One family I spoke to now has to pay £300 more for rent and despite working full time they have to claim benefits to survive,” Pilgrim says. “Objection could mean homelessness and many families fear social services may then intervene. They are being left with no choice.”

With David Cameron’s benefits cap making the poorest poorer, how can they be expected to afford private housing? Regeneration is not a sustainable solution; it is destroying communities and trapping the capital’s least well-off in poverty.

But there is some hope in Enfield where the Labour council is trying a different approach to ease the desperation felt by the austerity-hit London borough. It is  buying up properties to offer as social housing with plans to build 280 new municipal homes, starting this month.

Even better, the properties will be owned by the council through a separate company, so will not be put on the right to buy market. It’s a bold but valiant effort to improve social equality and offer better living standards to vulnerable residents.

In stark contrast, regeneration proposals in the Churchill Gardens estate in Westminster has caused such upheaval that a children’s playground could be moved underground to make way for a block of luxury flats. How have council estate children become undeserving of a play area with fresh air in the name of profit?

Local Labour councilors have launched a petition to save it, but residents are left wondering how so-called regeneration of their estate could be so damaging to the community.

This October London will host the largest property show in the world, MIPIN UK. Billed as the ‘First UK property trade show gathering all professionals looking to close deals in the UK property market.’

“The event epitomises who the players really are in London’s housing market,” Pilgrim said.

Britain’s housing crisis needs to be addressed without this collateral damage. But while profit remains prioritised above people, the future looks bleak.