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| New Era Estate Tenants' Association chair Lindsey Garrett (speaking), with Lynsay Spiteri (secretary, centre) and Danielle Molinari (vice-chair) © Paul Coleman, London Intelligence 2015 |
Fight all you like.
Campaign until the cows come home.
But you’ll never win.
They’ll eventually take your council homes.
Dispossess you.
Demolish your estate.
Displace and compel you to leave the neighbourhood.
Dispossess you.
Demolish your estate.
Displace and compel you to leave the neighbourhood.
Where you went to school.
Where you grew up.
And, years later, raised your own children.
At least, that's the common narrative.
About the relentless power of developer-led, council-backed ‘regeneration’.
Underpinned increasingly by large housing associations.
About the relentless power of developer-led, council-backed ‘regeneration’.
Underpinned increasingly by large housing associations.
Developers and councils; they win every time.
Working people lose everywhere across London.
And this narrative contains some depressing truths.
That test the mettle of dozens of residents and tenants groups across London.
That test the mettle of dozens of residents and tenants groups across London.
As they campaign against troikas of developers, councils
and larger housing associations intent on turning traditional working class neighbourhoods
into enclaves for the nonchalantly affluent.
Transforming swathes of London into a casino for
overseas property speculators.
Organised
But it’s a pessimistic narrative forcefully rejected by Lynsay
Spiteri, Danielle Molinari and Lindsey Garrett – three leading lights of the
New Era Estate Tenants Association in Hackney, an estate set up in the 1930s
for people on low incomes.
They came to Brixton in south London last night (Monday, 26 January) to encourage and offer help to tenants and leaseholders in Lambeth trying to halt various 'regeneration' juggernauts.
They came to Brixton in south London last night (Monday, 26 January) to encourage and offer help to tenants and leaseholders in Lambeth trying to halt various 'regeneration' juggernauts.
New Era, they say, shows working people can win.
Tenants and residents can save their homes and neighbourhoods.
But only if they get organised and fight back.
Fiery
Garrett tells the Brixton gathering how 93 New Era households organised to combat the property consortium that had bought their estate and then threatened
to triple rents and compel residents to move.
“We had an initial feeling of shock and anger,” recalls
Garrett, who has lived on the New Era all of her life.
Garrett explains how they set up a tenants' association and fought a strong
campaign.
A property management company withdrew from the New Era
due to the tenants’ fiery opposition.
Finally, new owners Westbrook sold the New Era to the
Dolphin Foundation charity as the fierce New Era campaign generated wider
support and media attention.
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| Right to left: Unite union organiser Janet MacLeod, and New Era tenants Lindsey Garrett, Lynsay Spiteri and Danielle Molinari (© London Intelligence 2015) |
Relentless
“We’re negotiating with Dolphin about the long-term
future of the estate but we’re definitely in a much better position than we were seven months ago,” says Garratt.
“It’s been an incredibly hard campaign.
"We’re all single mums and work full-time.
"We’re all single mums and work full-time.
"It was relentless but we were very passionate.
"Mainly because we had lived there all our lives and so
had our families.
"And we felt very passionate about the situation in Hackney
and right across London where rents are being inflated and people are being
forced out of London.
“We love Hackney.
"We love London.
"And we didn't want to go."
March for Homes
Garrett, Spiteri and Molinari spoke to about 50 local
residents and housing activists at a meeting in Brixton (below) organised by the Lambeth
Unite Community trade union branch (Monday, 26 January 2015).
Unite union organiser Janet MacLeod is one of a number of people at the heart of an attempt to pull together tenants struggling against various 'regeneration' schemes across London.
Such schemes affect tenants and residents on the West Hendon Estate, West Kensington and Gibbs Green at Earl's Court, Carpenters Estate in Stratford, John Walsh and Fred Wigg towers in Leytonstone, Ward's Corner and Love Lane in Tottenham, Cressingham Gardens in Lambeth, and the New Era in Hackney.
Thousands of tenants and leaseholders from across London are expected to join The March for Homes on Saturday, 31 January.
Two protest columns, from Elephant and Castle and from Shoreditch, intend to converge on City Hall.
Residents will urge London Mayor Boris Johnson to introduce rent controls, save council homes from demolition, and provide genuinely affordable homes with secure tenancies.
Unite union organiser Janet MacLeod is one of a number of people at the heart of an attempt to pull together tenants struggling against various 'regeneration' schemes across London.
Such schemes affect tenants and residents on the West Hendon Estate, West Kensington and Gibbs Green at Earl's Court, Carpenters Estate in Stratford, John Walsh and Fred Wigg towers in Leytonstone, Ward's Corner and Love Lane in Tottenham, Cressingham Gardens in Lambeth, and the New Era in Hackney.
Thousands of tenants and leaseholders from across London are expected to join The March for Homes on Saturday, 31 January.
Two protest columns, from Elephant and Castle and from Shoreditch, intend to converge on City Hall.
Residents will urge London Mayor Boris Johnson to introduce rent controls, save council homes from demolition, and provide genuinely affordable homes with secure tenancies.
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| Tenants and residents discuss ways to resist council estate sales and demolition © London Intelligence 2015 |
A fuller
version of this story will appear here shortly.
© Paul
Coleman, London Intelligence, January 2015
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