Cressingham Gardens
residents protest outside Lambeth Town Hall, July 2015
Last night's decision
by Lambeth Council to proceed with demolition of Cressingham Gardens
estate in Brixton is of a piece with similar 'regeneration' schemes
across the capital. To maximise the use of increasingly valuable
central London real estate, the Labour council plans to demolish 306
homes to make way for 464 new ones. Most of the 158 additional units
will be sold off, with only 15% let at council rents.
Tenants and
leaseholders in the 1960s low-rise blocks bordering Brockwell Park
fear they will be priced out of the area many have lived in for
decades. Meanwhile the council is caught between a rock and a hard
place by central government funding cuts. On paper at least, the
scheme looks better than those currently under way in Tory-led
Barnet,
but that is no consolation to the residents, who
stand to lose their homes with no certainty over where they will be
put during and after the rebuild, or at what cost.
The trend towards
displacement of social renting from an ever-widening area of the city
is undesirable for a whole host of reasons – including the break-up
of long-established communities, unsustainable pressures on public
services in the outlying boroughs, and rising transport costs for
low-paid workers forced to commute long distances. Resolving all
this cannot be done by the local authorities, Labour or Tory, now
left to make the best of a bad job. It requires massive changes in
central government housing policy. Don't hold your breath.
Cressingham Gardens
residents protest outside Lambeth Town Hall, July 2015
