Heygate – in response to Dave Hill
February 28th, 2013
The real question when considering how the London estates should be “regenerated” if that’s the word (it used to be) is how this ought to be funded and on whose behalf. There was a time when the borough or shire (outside London) would employ their own architects, quantity surveyors, civil engineers, clerk of works and direct labour force and just get on with it. In London of course it would have been the LCC and later the GLC. Those days may have gone in most cases but we need them back.
The question to which I refer is the straight choice between funding this publicly or privately, and if the former then why not make the best use of the assets still in public hands? The land being sold disgracefully for £50 million to Lend Lease still belongs to the council. Could they not borrow against it and the future buildings as assets to carry this out without private profit?
Southwark would have done better to automatically invest back in to social housing on the site through an affordable housing review mechanism rather than taking a half share of future profits, where the profits may not go to affordable housing and be seized by central government. – Richard Osband from the comments
A similar view is expressed below by an earlier poster to the same article.
If the councils were allowed to borrow for themselves against the rental income they would collect, they could act as the developer. Although the risk of any cost overruns would also be bourne by the council (and knowing how often that happens it might be too much of a risk). The partnership reduces the risk for the council. – thereverent – comments
In response to:-
http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/davehillblog/2013/feb/28/london-regeneration-principles-southwark
There are to my mind two answers, one theoretical from the point of view of what would have been likely to happen with a pre-1983 Labour party in power, and what can be done now.
What puzzles me is why anything needs to be done now. It seems to be that this has been tackled at the worst possible time for the former residents in terms of available funds to do the place up, I am wary of the “R” word (regeneration), its meaning has become corrupt like its neighbour the “A” word (affordable).
The 1970s answer, if one can forget for a moment that Heygate had then not long been built, would have most likely been to redevelop and improve the estate on behalf of the existing residents using a phased approach which displaced a limited number of people only temporarily on a single or dual move basis, and this is what counts, for their benefit.
Your question now is what is the best solution now with existing funds, or rather lack of public funds. I am not an economist, or a planner, and I cannot lay out how one seeks to borrow against land or standing assets, but Southwark own(ed) the land on which the Heygate stands, which has/had a value, but for whatever political reason, instead of seeking to sweat the assets being the value of the prime land, they have handed over both it and the opportunity to a private developer.
The injustice is plain to see, the fact that the former residents have since been rehoused, at public cost, does not diminish the argument that a better solution might have been found on behalf of the former residents.
The arguments used in each case, some of which you cite though not apparently on behalf of Wornington Green, (I gather you know the estate thanks to Cllr Emma Dent Coad), are the same. That the masterplan will be partly on behalf of residents, that the scheme will be phased, that the residents have the right of return. In each case (across the London estates) it proves not to be the case, because people displaced for a number of years will have set up home elsewhere, perhaps moved their children to a different school, and formed new networks of friends.
Where I really take issue is your refusal to accept the glaring truth that it amounts to social cleansing. This is the one point where you say “what’s the choice?” I say the choice is not to act but to wait for better economic times or form a publicly funded solution. Or it would have been had the place not been cleared.
I am, though, wary of the “social cleansing” accusation in this context. Labour politicians have used it against Conservative Hammersmith and Fulham over Earls Court, but the assertion – strongly denied – in that case is that the council’s covert motivation for wanting to see thousands of new homes for market sale built is to alter the political balance among local residents to its electoral advantage;
to import a greater percentage of the types of people more likely to vote Tory. Yet Labour Southwark, out of power for two terms in a marginal borough, has no electoral interest in promoting a change in housing tenure mix that reduced the proportion of likely Labour voters on its patch.
This is disengenuous, you are conflating two different arguments. Gerrymandering is real and a valid accusation to make but you have failed to address the issue of whether or not demolishing WKGG, Wornington Green, and the Heygate are social cleansing pure and simple, notwithstanding any accusations of gerrymandering. You have conveniently overlooked this by obfuscating it within a discussion about political advantage when it might equally be seen as a “improving the area” at the expense of other people.
It is perfectly worthwhile to ask the question, “If a borough demolishes an estate in favour of wealthier people, thus displacing the original residents, is this social cleansing?” to which my answer is yes, but you seem unwilling to address this directly.
The only equitable reply to the first Dave Hill article, to my mind, was from SinnDark
One Heygate resident, clearly closely involved with opposition to the deal and posting at length under the name sinndark, wrote that Southwark “should have built the 1000 new homes for Heygate residents before it moved them off the estate” and then “stuck to its policy” of requiring 35% of new homes to be “affordable”.
No doubt this will run and run, as London grows ever more divided.
p.s. For the avoidance of doubt, I used to be Piecesofeight on the Guardian, now I’m SingleAspect.
The best people to follow for up to date information about the goings on in that part of London are 35% linked here:-