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| Walterton Road, North Paddington 1975 |
My first useful work as a photographer
came about through involvement with housing campaigners at the tail
end of the slum clearance programmes of the 1960s and 70s. In
London, streets of poorly maintained, privately rented Victorian
terraces were being torn down and replaced by a brave new world of
modern homes in publicly owned estates of concrete apartment blocks.
Forty years on, that world has turned
full circle. Now it is the 'castles in the sky' that are coming
down, streets are all the rage, and council housing, now renamed 'social', is
struggling to survive.
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| Gloucester House and the rubble of Durham Court, South Kilburn Estate, 2018 |
Across the road from the sub-standard
flat that was my home back in 1975 (toilet and cold water sink on the
shared landing, no bathroom), work has begun on Phase 2b of Brent
Council's 15 year South Kilburn Estate regeneration scheme.
Demolition of the low rise Durham Court blocks is underway, and the
now deserted 18 storey Gloucester House awaits the wrecking crew.
If all goes according to plan, by 2029,
when the final phase is scheduled for completion, 2400 new homes will
have been built, 1200 for private sale, and 1200 let at social rent
to existing secure tenants.
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| Partly demolished blocks, Durham Court, South Kilburn Estate |
The buildings and landscaping completed
so far are impressive, a big improvement on the bleak brutalist
concrete they have replaced, and the scheme has attracted much
praise. The council has also been lauded for its financial strategy,
using income from the private sales to fund the homes let at social
rents.
So what's not to like? In a convincing piece on Haringey's controversial partnership deal with
Australian developer Lendlease on the
Red
Brick blog, Steve Hilditch argues that the most straightforward
criterion for assessing the wave of regeneration deals being done by
councils across the capital should be the number of social rented
homes there will be at the end of the process.
“
Thousands of mainly social rented homes will be knocked down
and thousands of mainly private homes will be built. There will be
many more homes overall, but, how will the proposed mix of market and
sub-market homes tackle homelessness and the needs of people on the
waiting list? The type and tenure of new homes is as important as how many
homes are built in total. Social rent remains the only truly
affordable option for many people on lower incomes.”
On that measure, the figures for South Kilburn don't stack up. By
2029, 2400 new
homes will have replaced 1610. Of the latter, 1420 were occupied by
secure tenants and 190 by leaseholders. It's hard to know whether the
prices leaseholders are getting for their compulsorily purchased
homes match the prices demanded for the new (unlikely). But it is
certain that 1420 secure tenants will not fit into the 1200 homes
available for social rent. It is probable that enough of them will have been rehoused elsewhere to make
the scheme work, but the net effect will be to reduce the number of
social rent homes available across the borough, and to clear even more people on low or average incomes out of
central London.
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| Kilburn Quarter, completed phase 2a of South Kilburn Estate regeneration scheme |
Brent, like many others London councils, has been forced into this
trade-off between private sales and publicly owned social rentals by
central government funding cuts and the long-term disempowerment of
local authorities. The new estate looks like it's going to be a nice
place to live, and will provide much improved homes for the tenants
who are rehoused on it - albeit at higher so-called 'target' social
rents. It will also increase the number of homes available for
private sale and market rental – in itself not a bad thing, as long
as they're occupied once bought. It's just a pity it won't be of any
help in cutting the waiting list and housing the homeless. More pictures
here.
More words and pictures
here
and
here.
