Residents’ new era of worry

The US investment company that has bought the New Era housing estate in London’s Hoxton has said that there will be no changes to tenancies until 2015.

Westbrook Partners bought the 93 flats out from under the residents back in March. It plans to hike the rent to ‘market value’ making living there unaffordable to the families and communities who have called the estate home for over 70 years.

The two bedroom flats currently let for £600 per month. Westbrook plans to refurbish the flats and then raise the rent to £2,400 per month. Hackney council has estimated that this will make up to half the estate’s residents homeless.

“Shockingly we are seeing more and more of these cases across the Capital,” said Pilgrim Tucker, a community coordinator for Unite.

“Lower income families are being forced from the areas they have called home for generations as house prices rocket and private landlords cash in.”

On Monday Westbrook announced that tenancies will continue in to 2015, meaning no families will lose their homes before Christmas.

“The fact they are not telling us more is quite worrying,” said Lindsay Garrett, a single mother who has been helping lead the campaign against the evictions.

“It suggests they are forging ahead in the New Year otherwise they would tell us not to worry.”

It has also been revealed that investors have placed ownership of the flats in an offshore Channel Islands company, which means they could escape paying UK tax on capital gains, levied as corporation tax.

Lindsay criticised the decision to transfer ownership of their homes offshore. “There’s a moral issue here. They are getting richer off the back of making people homeless. As if that was not enough in itself it seems they are trying to avoid paying back in tax.”

Residents will take their protest to Westbrook’s London based offices in Mayfair on Monday (December 1). They will then march to Downing Street where they will hand in a petition to David Cameron calling for plans to evict them to be dropped – you can sign the petition by following the link at the bottom of this page.

“Unite’s community team are working closely with the New Era residents and hundreds of other families across London to try and stop the social cleansing of our city,” added Pilgrim.

Unite is calling for a massive council house building programme and the regulation of landlords with the emphasis on rent controls which work in Germany and Sweden.

“I hope we are an inspiration for others, we have had loads of people telling us they know how it feels, they live in London and their rents are going up, it’s something that affects us all, and people have real empathy for it,” added Lindsay.