UK
Rampant landlordism and tenant resistance
NOVEMBER 15, 2025
Ahead of two upcoming talks about her new book, Eviction: A Social History of Rent, Jessica Field explains how her own family’s battle led her to explore a history of housing struggles.
My parents, brother and 69 neighbour households were finally evicted from their private rental estate in south Leeds in 2022. They’d lived on the ex-Coal Board estate for 16 years by that point, and some of their neighbours for decades longer. Nicknamed ‘Cardboard City’ because of its draughty post-war prefab design, this neighbourhood was a close-knit community of low-income workers, pensioners and young families.
The road to eviction began in 2017 when corporate landlord Pemberstone submitted plans to redevelop the run-down estate. Located off the M1 and the M62, and just a twenty-minute drive into the centre of Leeds it was prime real estate. For my parents’ low-income tenant community, it was home.
Residents immediately formed the Save Our Homes LS26 Residents Action Group to fight the plans, supported by organisations like Acorn, Hands Off Our Homes, the NUM and local Labour and Lib Dem councillors. We ultimately lost because the various landlords’ neglect of the prefab housing estate over the years meant that redevelopment was judged inevitable. Disrepair was lucrative twice over – first through not forking out for maintenance, then through selling dilapidated stock at land value.
Initially, our case felt like an isolated injustice – a mass eviction rooted in a quirk of history which saw a run-down Coal Board housing estate transfer to distant speculators who managed them into decline. But support messages from other activist communities revealed the system working exactly as designed: landlords manoeuvring around regulations; policy treating households as isolated units (destroying mutual aid networks); and developers always winning.
These observations led me to spend three years in the archives researching for my book Eviction: A Social History of Rent. First, to explore the workings of an understudied landlord – the National Coal Board: how did our post-war public housing estate end up in the hands of private investors in the first place, and what did that transfer say about the security of public housing more broadly?
No golden era of public housing
When the NCB was nationalised in 1947, it inherited 140,000 houses and built 20,000 more. By my calculation, it would have been landlord to more than half a million people – one of the biggest in the country. As a nationalised industry, the NCB should have offered the opposite of profit-seeking private capital when it came to housing. Its policy was designed in-step with Labour’s mass council house building programme – rents were to be aligned with council houses, communities were meant to be mixed, and the properties counted as public housing stock. Yet, the NCB behaved remarkably like private landlords.
First, it managed housing only to service production needs. It neglected maintenance across decades, leaving properties ‘just-about habitable’ while tenants lived there. When deciding whether to repair a property, the NCB weighed administrative and managerial concerns, regardless of who was living in it. Then, when the coal industry was on the ropes, it auctioned estates – including my parents’ in 1986 – to private speculators for a pittance. It was determined to ‘get out of housing’ as if it was a failed investment rather than a fundamental provision for workers.
Councils displayed similar attitudes, seeking to avoid maintenance responsibilities while raising rents to cover costs and selling off stock from the 1960s. Private speculators obviously prioritised profits, treating properties as assets rather than homes.
What emerged from the long view was that, whether the landlord was a nationalised industry, a council authority, or a private investor, the fundamental dynamics remained the same. All landlord types exercised power through distancing mechanisms (middlemen, agents, administrative bureaucracy), treated tenants as interchangeable economic units, and prioritised their own (economic) interests – industrial success, budget management, or profit – over tenant security and community.
Tenants fight back
The second thread apparent in the archives and running through Eviction was that of tenant resistance. I came across remarkable stories of pushback against these tides of landlordism – ones which deserved to be celebrated and offer lessons for today.
Famously, of course, the women of early 20th century Glasgow. In 1915, profiteering landlords hiked rents for their slum houses. In defiance, Mary Barbour and Helen Crawfurd led over 20,000 people into a mass rent strike. Similar strikes occurred across the country, but the scale of the Glasgow strike ultimately forced the government to freeze rents in 1915.
In the 1960s, the University of Liverpool was a private landlord renting out slum housing. In 1969, resident Ethel Singleton, supported by students, essentially doorstepped Princess Alexandra who was visiting campus to ribbon-cut the opening of a new building. Singleton invited the princess to view their dire housing conditions; she did and media headlines covered her shock. Slum residents were then swiftly rehoused.
In a more recent example, New Era block in Hoxton was sold to American private equity firm Westbrook, who immediately threatened astronomical rent hikes. Led by Lindsey Garrett, Lynsay Spiteri, and Danielle Molinari, residents mobilised and organised celebrity-backed public protests that shamed the landlord into selling the block to a housing charity.
In my parents’ estate, the Save Our Homes LS26 fight might not have prevented eviction, but sustained pressure – led by Cindy Readman and my mum Hazell Field – resulted in Pemberstone selling to housing association Leeds Federated Housing. So, today, it is a social housing estate rather than market-rate owner occupier.
That such campaigns are commonly led or sustained by women shouldn’t come as much of a surprise. Women bear a disproportionate burden of housing insecurity. They tend to be more responsible for household budgets (moving house is costly), more responsible for care work (which relies on localised mutual aid networks – broken with eviction), and more responsible for domestic labour (which, during evictions, increased tenfold).
Lessons from struggle
Eviction draws many lessons from these campaigns: the value of building alliances (expanding mutual aid networks); the power of creating and sustaining media attention; and the value and necessity of care in campaign relationships.
Such lessons remain relevant, even with this latest step forward in renter reform. The just-passed Renters Rights Act follows a similar pattern to past examples of fiddling round the edges of a broken system. ‘No fault’ evictions are banned but redevelopment remains grounds for eviction, so my parents and brother would still be out. There are no rent caps in the Act and affordability and supply untouched.
As Eviction highlights, private landlords are creative in the face of regulation and public sector landlords don’t behave much better. Real change requires confronting landlordism itself and reimagining tenancies: treating tenants as social beings making homes and communities, not interchangeable economic units; ensuring genuine affordability; and putting tenant decision-making at the centre of every aspect of housing – design, management, maintenance, and cost. Labour’s current approach risks repeating century-old mistakes unless it addresses how landlord power operates across all ownership structures – public, private, and everything between.
Jessica Field is a historian and holds a PhD from the University of Manchester where she is currently a Research Associate. In 2022, Jessica won the Dawn Foster Memorial Essay Prize for her article “Fighting for Cardboard City“. Eviction is her first book, available from Verso.
Upcoming book talks:
- Burning House Books, Glasgow, Thursday 20th November – in conversation with Ruth Gilbert, Living Rent (https://www.outsavvy.com/event/31569/eviction-a-social-history-of-rent-a-conversation-with-jessica-field-and-ruth-gilbert)
- Bookmarks, Bloomsbury London, Friday 5th December – in conversation with Rebecca Winson (https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/authorsbookmarks-jessica-field-evicted-tickets-1821203822659)
Inset images: c/o Save Our Homes LS26
The Labour government is giving millions of families across the country the security they deserve in their own homes, by banning no-fault evictions from May.
The Renters’ Rights Act – described as the biggest shake-up to renting in England for more than 30 years – was formally approved at the end of October, with the government now implementing a raft of measures to protect renters, which also includes landlords being prevented from increasing rent more than once a year, while bidding wars between prospective tenants will also be outlawed from May 1.
Landlords will also no longer be able to discriminate against tenants for being on benefits or having children, and will not be able to unreasonably refuse requests from their tenants to own pets.
Housing Secretary Steve Reed said: “We’re calling time on no-fault evictions and rogue landlords. Everyone should have peace of mind and the security of a roof over their head – the law we’ve just passed delivers that.
“We’re now on a countdown of just months to that law coming in – so good landlords can get ready and bad landlords should clean up their act.”
Although no-fault evictions are banned, the government has said landlords will still have rights to evict on reasons such as wanting to move back in, selling their property, or over unpaid rent.
Basit Mahmood is editor of Left Foot Forward
James Moules
13th November, 2025
Major provisions of the government’s flagship Renters’ Rights Bill will come into force from May 2026, according to reports.
The scrapping of so-called “no fault” evictions will happen on May 1, 2026, along with other measures aimed at improving the lot of renters.
Housing Secretary Steve Reed said: “Our historic Act marks the biggest leap forward in renters’ rights in a generation. We are finally ending the injustice overseen by previous governments that has left millions living in fear of losing their homes.
“For decades, the scales have been tipped against tenants. Now, we’re levelling the playing field between renters and landlords.
“We are tearing down the walls of injustice in the private rented sector and building a future where tenants are protected, respected and empowered.”
Tom Darling, director at the Renters’ Reform Coalition, said: “Today’s announcement that the Renters’ Rights Act will take effect on 1 May is fantastic news. We have fought for this day for so long and to now have certainty about when the last section 21 eviction will be is crucial for our members, who will be trying to ensure as many renters as possible are aware of their new rights.
“It will be important that the government quickly implement the whole Act – including the landlord database and Awaab’s Law – so that England’s 12 million private renters, who have waited years for these reforms, can benefit from the new legislation as soon as possible.
“As sorely needed as the Renters’ Rights Act is, affordability is going to continue to be a huge issue – the biggest issue – facing private renters. We need the government to take real action on this affordability crisis. And for renters to be able to put their new rights into practice, the Act must be backed up by rigorous enforcement, with councils given the resources and funding they need to hold criminal landlords to account.”
The bill was one of the Labour government’s flagship proposals upon entering office last year.
Measures that will come into effect next May are:
Ban discrimination against letting to renters on benefits or with children
End fixed term tenancies, making all tenancies secure and open-ended
Give renters a right to request pets in their home which landlords cannot ‘unreasonably’ refuse
No comments:
Post a Comment