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| Seamus Clarke in his sub-standard flat before renovation, Walterton Estate, 1993 |
Another scanning session has
resurrected a set of photos from the campaign by
residents of two North Paddington estates to save their council-owned
homes from sale to a private developer. Explanation below. More
pictures here.
In 1985, with the Greater London
Council on the verge of abolition, Walterton and Elgin, two of its estates
in the north of the borough of Westminster, were handed over to
Westminster City Council.
The two estates, one comprised of Victorian terraces, the other of two 1960s towers surrounded by low-rise concrete blocks, were in poor condition. Without any consultation, the council immediately began drawing up plans to sell them off to private developers.
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| WEAG posters, Walterton Estate, 1987 |
Residents responded by forming the
Walterton and Elgin Action Group (WEAG). At very short notice, more than 200 tenants
attended a meeting of the council's housing committee to demand that
their needs and wishes should take priority.
It was the beginning of a seven year
campaign, and WEAG, with a programme of inventive direct action and assistance from a wide range of sympathetic housing professionals,
legal advisers and local Labour councillors, went on to draw up its
own plan to save the homes for local people in need of rented
housing. It lobbied council meetings, paid unannounced visits to
the offices of property developers, signed petitions, and flooded the
area with posters publicising its struggle.
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| Unannounced WEAG visit to Regalian Property Company, 1987 |
The Conservative led council, under the
leadership of Dame Shirley Porter and concurrently fighting
accusations of gerrymandering over its Building Stable Communities
programme, resisted all the way. But in April 1992, the tenants and
residents were victorious, their newly-formed Walterton and Elgin
Community Homes (WECH) taking over the ownership and control of 921
homes, together with a dowry of £22 million to cover the cost of
repairs and renovations.
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| Removing asbestos from a flat in Chantry Point, Elgin Estate, 1995 |
