UK

Why we are occupying

 

Labour Hub Editors

By Lesnes Resistance

August 7, 2024

Currently the only protest occupation of a housing estate in the UK, the ongoing occupation at the Lesnes Estate in Thamesmead began on Sunday 7th April 2024, led by Lesnes Resistance (LesRes) in partnership with Housing Rebellion, an umbrella group of independent housing campaigns and activists. During this first weekend of the occupation, there were workshops by the Architects Climate Action Network, Public Interest Law Centre and Corporate Watch, all of whom had been supporters of LesRes. Subsequent weeks saw a further three properties being occupied, and talks on site from Nick Bano, Anna Minton and Paul Watt.

The Lesnes Estate is a small portion of the immensely ambitious 1960s plans of the Greater London Council for its utopian new town of Thamesmead, which was to include facilities for a modern, communal way of life, even including a yacht basin adjacent to the Thames. Eventually, the much-needed access roads and railway lines that were meant to connect this new part of the city to the centre failed to be built, and the project was branded a ‘failure’.

Nowadays, however, these long-awaited transport connections have finally reached the local population, with the Elizabeth Line taking only 16 minutes to Canary Wharf — a much-advertised fact on the demolition hoardings. But instead of being allowed to enjoy the improved connections to their area, the local community, now majority West African, is being torn apart and displaced.

In October 2022, Peabody Housing Association was given planning permission for a regeneration plan that proposes to demolish the existing 400 three- and four-bedroom social homes, modernist terraces with ample storage space and generous gardens, organised around car-free courtyards where children play freely as their parents keep an eye from a balcony or kitchen window. Instead of these carefully designed homes, Peabody proposes to build 1,950 new flats, of which only 61 will be social rent and 35% will be ‘affordable’, or priced at up to 80% of market rent. Peabody’s plans also aim to remove the pedestrian streets and destroy the estate’s green spaces.

Crucially, as a result of Peabody’s plans, long-standing homeowners are facing compulsory purchase of their homes at a fraction of the price of the planned new homes. They fear they will be displaced out of London and torn away from a close-knit community, as has become the customary practice of so-called ‘regeneration’ projects across London. This process of social cleansing will in time be extended beyond Lesnes by Peabody, who are in charge in 40 hectares of land in Thamesmead, in what is currently London’s largest regeneration front.

Since taking over management of the Lesnes Estate in 2014, Peabody have been boarding up hundreds of social homes, keeping them long-term empty even as the need for social housing, and especially for family homes, has reached unprecedented proportions. The housing association’s former reputation as a pro-social and charitable housing provider has been increasingly tarnished over the years, with four recent counts of “severe maladmnistration” against it by the Housing Ombudsman and findings of chronic mismanagement from two recent FT investigations into damp and mould and overcharging [paywall]. In the viability assessment for its planning proposal for Lesnes, Peabody estimated that it stood to lose £35m from the demolition and new development, and used this projected loss, as all developers do, to justify shrinking the minimum recommended provision of social housing, which is set to 50% when demolition is involved. However, the independent viability assessment carried out by Bexley Council found instead that the scheme would turn a £98m profit. Sadly even this huge discrepancy did not move the Conservative-controlled Council to seek any significant amendments to the planning proposals before stamping them through to the Mayor’s office.

The estate occupation is seeking to denormalise estate demolition and the destructive consequences it has for individuals and communities. By occupying empty homes, we also aim to draw attention to the fact that hundreds of social homes are being boarded up and kept long-term empty amid a housing crisis of unprecedented proportions. Last but not least, we are voicing the residents’ calls for Peabody to refurbish rather than demolish the estate.

Previously, the residents had been calling on the Mayor of London to hold a public hearing in which they could express their concerns surrounding the planning application, which has yet to be approved by the Mayor. Sian Berry, when at the London Assembly, raised a number of concerns about the failure to consider retrofit and the way that the resident ballot was carried out — with the word “demolition” not once being used in the ballot document for Peabody’s plan, so that residents who agreed with the proposals thought they were being offered improvements to their homes and nearby public spaces.

Currently, LesRes are working with AAB Architects and ACAN to produce a series of practical retrofit proposals to show that there are real, viable alternatives to Peabody’s destructive plans for demolition, dispossessionBy  and displacement. As Sadiq Khan has yet to approve the redevelopment plans, this work to produce community-led retrofit proposals aims to force the Mayor to consider whether it is right to sacrifice communities and climate, and the principles of his London Plan, for the sake of Peabody’s profits. You can help by supporting us to hire a Retrofit Assessor at a reduced, community rate with even the smallest donation, and also by signing the petition to protect communities and climate by saying no the demolition of Lesnes. 

Finally, the estate occupation will be featured at Open House London on September 21st, so all are welcome to come and visit us then!

Main image: Thamesmead. Source: geograph.org.uk. Author: Kenneth Yarham, licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 Generic license. Inset image: c/o Les Res.