housing | >Re-PHOTO

Baptist Chapel, Fine Houses, A Queen And A Hospital

More pictures from my walk on 27th January 1989. The previous post on this walk is St George’s Tavern and North Peckham 1989

*Cottage Green, Camberwell, Southwark, 1989 89-1g-01*

Robert Browning the Victorian poet (1812-89) was born in Rainbow Cottage, Cottage Green and grew up in the area – there is a Rainbow Street not far away but the cottage is long gone. But the area still felt a little out of place in the middle of twentieth century London.

The tree is still there on the corner with Wells Way and so too is the chapel down the street and the house beyond on the corner of Southampton Way. At right the brick wall and fence remain, but the site behind, not visible here, has been sold for development. I’m not sure why the foreground railings on the pavement edge were there, but they are now no longer. At left instead of the corrugated iron there is now housing almost up to the pavement and the 11 storey block facing the end of the street has been replaced by flats of half the height.

Browning’s parents – his father was a clerk at the Bank of England on what was for the time a pretty decent salary – moved a few yards to Hanover Cottage on Coleman Rd when he was around 12, and there is a more or less illegible stone plaque on a wall of the shop on the corner of Southampton Way and Coleman Road with a more recent Southwark blue plaque higher up.

*Cottage Green Baptist Chapel, Camberwell, Southwark, 1989 89-1g-61*

The chapel was built in 1844 and became a Baptist chapel ten years later in 1854. Owned by the Copleston Centre, a Peckham Community Church in Copleston Road it has been in use as a Christian nursery, the Destiny Day Nursery registered in 2007.

When I took this picture is still in use as a Baptist chapel. The commercial building beyond the chapel is still there as is the brick building at left, though the fences have been replace by a low brick structure, perhaps a bin store.

*Cottage Green Baptist Chapel, Camberwell, Southwark, 1989 89-1g-62*

A second picture gives a clearer view of the church noticeboard with its message ‘SUNDAY FAMILY SERVICE 11.00AM’. I would like to know more about the windowless building to the right.

*Haulage Yard, Housing, Southampton Way, Camberwell, Southwark, 1989 89-1g-63*

The houses at 73-77 were built in the early 19th century and are Grade II listed. A planning application was made in 2021 for the development of the yard which has an ‘L’ shape behind the houses on Southampton Way to another entrance on Cottage Green, opposite the chapel and next to another listed building, Collingwood House at 1-3 College Green – which I did not photograph.

*Brunswick Park area, Camberwell, Southwark, 1989 89-1g-64*

I think these houses are near Brunswick Park, but cannot identify the exact location. There are a number of houses of a similar mid-Victorian age and style in the area which was developed by W J Hudson who bought the area in 1847, naming the open space in the centre after the estranged wife of George IV, Caroline of Brunswick. Long separated from her husband she had become a very popular figure by the time he became king in 1820 and died (possibly not naturally) shortly after his coronation in 1821.

The garden at the centre of the square was bought by the Metropolitan Borough of Camberwell in 1901 and opened to the public as a park in 1907.

*Brunswick Park, St Giles Rd, Camberwell, Southwark, 1989 89-1g-66*

Finding the exact location of photographs I took 33 years ago is much easier when they include street names as this picture of houses on the corner of Brunswick Park does. Princess Caroline of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel was the daughter of George III’s sister and had a surprising introduction to this country as she first landed at Greenwich at what was then the Royal Hospital for Seamen and asked “Are all Englishman missing an arm or a leg?“

The future George IV married her for her money and for the need to provide the country with an heir. She was “short, fat, ugly and never changed her undergarments, and rarely washed. Her body odour was overwhelming.” George had already made a secret and illegal marriage to the beautiful but Roman Catholic Maria Fitzherbert around ten years earlier, but as he had not had his father’s consent for this, the second marriage was not bigamous. Both George and Caroline got very drunk at their wedding and somehow despite their mutual repulsion a daughter and heir Princess Charlotte was born the following year.

The couple separated shortly after. George made a number of unsuccessful attempt to divorce her, including setting up a Royal Commission called the ‘Delicate Investigation’ which failed to find evidence of adultery, possibly because their heart wasn’t really in it, perhaps due to the overwhelming evidence against George.

Caroline left Britain in 1814 for Europe, shocking people in various countries by her behaviour (which included often appearing in public with her dress open to the waist, dancing topless in Geneva and becoming the mistress among others of Napoleon’s brother-in-law.)

When George became king in 1820 as they were still married she was automatically queen consort and decided to return to Britain. The government tried to bribe her, offering her £50,000 to stay away, but she came back and set up house in Hammersmith. She was very popular with the public (at a distance) many of whom were disgusted by her husband’s immoral behaviour, both towards her and with his various mistresses. A mob surrounded Parliament daily when the House of Lords tried for over 7 weeks to dissolve her marriage, eventually forcing them to abandon the attempt.

Uninvited, she tried to attend George IV’s coronation in 1821, but had the door of Westminster Abbey slammed in her face. She died 19 days later, convinced she had been poisoned. It seems more than likely this was so.

*St Giles Hospital, Flats, St Giles Rd, Camberwell, Southwark, 1989 89-1g-52*

St Giles Hospital was opened in 1875 as the Camberwell Workhouse Infirmary and blocks were added here on St Giles Rd (then Brunswick Rd) around 1900. In 1913 it became the Camberwell Parish Infirmary and in 1930 it was taken over by the London County Council. On joining the NHS in 1948 it became St Giles’ Hospital. It closed in 1983 and the blocks here were converted into flats.

*St Giles Hospital, Flats, St Giles Rd, Camberwell, Southwark, 1989 89-1g-54*

Another picture from the four I made of the former hospital in St Giles Road on the east side of Brunswick Park. I walked down the road back to Peckham Road, where my walk will continue in a later post.

My posts on this walk on 27th January 1989 began at St George’s, Camberwell, Absolutely Board & Alberto.

Housing, Fukushima, Dolphins, Poppies, Deloitte & Royal Opera House

Friday 7th November 2014 was an unusually long and busy day for me in London.

Brent Housing Sit-in – South Kilburn Housing Office, Friday 7th November 2014

My day began outside the South Kilburn Housing Office where campaigners were calling for Brent to end selling properties to overseas investors while rehousing local residents outside the area. They accuse the Labour council of social cleansing and say people need to be put before profit. Soon they moved into the office and sat with their posters in the lobby.

There is a huge amount of ‘regeneration’ taking place in council estates in Brent, but the new properties are is largely advertised and sold off to people from outside the borough – including to wealthy investors abroad who often will leave the properties empty while London house prices rise, selling them after a few years at a high profit. It’s easier to sell empty properties than to have the bother of sitting tenants, though generally these can be easily evicted.

The campaigners included Isabel Counihan Sanchez and other members of the Housing 4 All campaign which grew out of the Counihan family campaign and Unite Community members. The result of profit-led regeneration process is social cleansing – with people from Brent having to move to outer London or away from London altogether because they cannot afford properties in the area. Often they have to move into private rented accommodation with little or no security of tenure on short-term contracts, where landlords often fail to do repairs and evict tenants who complain.

What residents of Brent (and other boroughs need), as the campaigner’s posters stated is ‘Social Housing Not Social Cleansing’, as in the previous century when philanthropic schemes – such as Peabody – and councils built houses and flats as social housing at rents that are actually affordable to people on low or minimum wage.

Brent Housing Sit-in

Fukushima Nuclear Protest – Japanese Embassy, Friday 7th November 2014

From Brent I travelled to the Japanese Embassy on Piccadilly, where a small group of Japanese and English protesters were handing out bi-lingual Japanese/English fliers about the continuing danger from radioactive leaks from the Fukushima nuclear power station.

Their weekly lunchtime protests here call for an end to the building of nuclear power stations worldwide because of the safety risks that Fukushima has highlighted, and for a proper investigation of the failures of TEPCO, the owners of the Fukushima power plant in running the plant and reporting and tackling the catastrophe. Later they left to protest at the nearby offices of TEPCO in Berkeley Square.

Fukushima Nuclear Protest

Taiji Dolphin slaughter protest – Japanese Embassy, Friday 7th November 2014

I remained outside the embassy where a crowd of several hundred as calling on Japan to halt the annual slaughter of 20,000 dolphins, porpoises and small whales each year in Taiji Cove, which had been taking place annually for around 40 years.

Those protesting included Ric O’ Barry, founder of the Dolphin Project and the maker of the film ‘The Cove’ which has shown the shocking reality of the dolphin slaughter to audiences around the world. Here he holds a poste ‘Enough Is Enough’.

The protest was remarkable for the number of hand drawn and painted posters and placards, as well as some 3D artworks. Many of those present accepted the offer of having their hands covered in red paint to represent the blood of the dolphins, which turns the water in the bay red during the slaughter.

Most of the protesters remained behind the barriers on the opposite side of the road to the embassy, but there was some tension between the police and a few who crossed the road to protest closer to the embassy doorway.

Taiji Dolphin slaughter protest

Trafalgar Square Poppy Memorial – Friday 7th November 2014

On my way to the next protest I changed buses at Trafalgar Square and stopped to look at Mark Humphrey’s brass ‘Every Man Remembered’ which had been unveiled there earlier in the day. Later I wrote about this bland and idealised image of an unknown soldier in Remembering the Dead on this site. To truly remember and honour the sacrifice our memorials might better show – in Seigfried Sassoon’s words – ‘Young faces bleared with blood, Sucked down into the mud‘. In my article I linked the another by Paul Mason in which he reminds us that the First World War actually ended when German sailors, soldiers and workers refused to fight.

Trafalgar Square Poppy Memorial

IWGB protest at Deloitte, Friday 7th November 2014

Another bus took me in into the City, where the IWGB (Independent Workers of Great Britain trade union) were protesting around Shoe Lane at Deloitte’s City offices. The cleaners in these are outsourced and employed by Serco who have suspended to workers for taking part in earlier protests over working conditions and staff shortages which have led to cleaners suffering from stress and back problems.

The cleaners had hoped to take security by surprise at the first of the offices they arrived at, but they were obviously prepared, and the cleaners could only play their drums, blow their horns and whistles, shout slogans and wave their flags in the courtyard outside, unfurling a large banner with the message ‘Solidarity. We Are Performing a SercoExorcism’.

Security managed to keep ahead of them as they visited and protested outside three nearby Deloitte offices. At the third, two City of London police officers grabbed Alberto Durango as he was speaking and tried to stop him protesting. IWGB members surrounded them, insisting that they had a right to lawful protest and eventually the police backed down. The IWGB marched on to protest at a fourth office, then marched back to Fleet St.

IWGB protest at Deloitte

IWGB protest at Royal Opera House, Friday 7th November 2014

By now I was rather hoping to say goodbye and go home, but as we arrived on Fleet St, Alberto Durango announced that the group would be marching on to pay a surprise visit to the Royal Opera House, were outsourced IWGB cleaners are in dispute with cleaning contractor Mitie over victimisation, trade union recognition and working conditions.

The cleaners moved quietly through the streets and rather surprised me as we arrived at the opera house by rushing into the foyer. A security guard grabbed hold of Alberto Durango but he pulled away from here and the rest of the group followed in and I went with them.

There they held a short protest with Alberto making clear their demands and calling on the Royal Opera House to support their cleaners and pressure Mitie who they have given the contract to to treat the cleaners properly. Opera House staff stood and listened and then the IWGB walked out. And at last I could go home.

IWGB protest at Royal Opera House

Walworth Road, Harker’s Studios & John Ruskin

This continues my posts on my walk in Walworth on 8th January 1989. The previous post was
Liverpool Grove & Octavia Hill.

*Wooler St, Wendover, Aylesbury Estate, Walworth, Southwark, 1979 89-1c-44*

The domestic scale of the long terrace built around 1900 contrasts with the huge slab block of Wendover on the Aylesbury Esate, built between 1963 and 1977 to provided good quality social housing. Poor maintenance by the council allowed the estate to deteriorate and it became demonised as a problem estate.

Although a majority of residents wanted to remain and voted for refurbishment, Southwark Council decided to demolish the estate. They were met with considerable local resistance with some blocks being occupied by activists. Although parts of the estate have been demolished the fight to retain the rest continues.

The council’s policy seems driven by the hope of large profits for themselves as well as the developers from replacing much of the estate by properties which can be sold at market prices. Similar hopes led to the demolition of the Heygate estate but this resulted in a massive loss for the council, details of which were accidentally disclosed, although some of those from the council involved in the scheme moved to highly lucrative jobs as a result of it.

Heygate’s demolition also resulted in a huge loss of social housing in the area, and the displacement of former residents to outlying areas of London and beyond. Many of the relatively low quality high price flats on the site were sold overseas as investment properties, their value increasing as London house prices soar.

Wooler Street was on the edge of the Octavia Hill planned estate and contains a number of terraced maisonettes and houses of a more conventional late Victorian/Edwardian design. The Octavia Hill (Liverpool Grove) Conservation Area appraisal suggests they “are most likely part of the same development“. Possibly they come from a development by the Church Commissioners before Hill became involved.

*Merrow St, Walworth Rd, Walworth, Southwark, 1989 89-1c-35*

Merrow Street is one of the older streets in the area and this picture shows its junction with Walworth Road. The buildings here are still much the same but their uses have changed. Panache Exclusive Footwear is now a pawnbrokers and The Rock pub which was at 374 Walworth Rd since at least the 1860s became an Irish pub, Liam Og’s around 2005. Liam Og’s apparently featured male strippers at Sunday Lunchtimes, though this perhaps put customers off and in 2009 it became Banana’s Bar which closed a few years later.

There were plans to demolish this building approved in 2018 but then further plans to reopen it as a Beer and Burger Bar with Dance Hall’ in 2020 which failed. In 2021 it became Homeland Furniture.

*Fielding St, Walworth, Southwark, 1989 89-1c-36*

Fielding Street is on the west side of Walworth Road and according to the Walworth Road Historic Area Assessment was laid out (then as Olney St) “after the sale of Montpelier Tea Gardens and Walworth Gardens, post 1844“. These terraced houses with basements have rather impressive doorways are shown on the earliest large-scale maps of the area I can find surveyed around 1870. The skip shows that extensive work was being undertaken on at least one of them.

*Cafe, Arnside St, Walworth, Southwark, 1989 89-1c-22*

There is still a café here, though it had become the Continental Cafe rather than remaining Irish until 2012. It then became the ‘University of Suya’ which I think was a Nigerian restaurant, and later the frontage added the words ‘African Bar & Grill’ to make its offerings clearer.

The doorway at left was the entrance to flats above the shops at 403 Walworth Road.

Works, Horsley St, Walworth, Southwark, 1989 89-1c-23 — *Harkers Studios, Horsley St, Walworth, Southwark, 1989 89-1c-23*

Horsley Street is a short street running from Arnside Street south to Westmoreland Road.

Harkers Studios was purpose built for Joseph Harker’s theatrical scenery painting business in 1904 and was grade II listed in 1989. The large doors at left have the number 43 and ‘MOSS EMPIRES LTD’, the owners of many UK theatres named on them.

More recently the works became ‘The Furniture Union’ or TFU, an upmarket supplier of furniture, bathroom ware, kitchens, lighting, furnishings and accessories. It has recently been converted into “stunning apartments, which manage to preserve the special architectural and historic interest of the building.“

Flats, Arnside St, Walworth, Southwark, 1989 89-1c-24 — *Flats, Arnside St, Walworth, Southwark, 1989*

Wellington House is part of a small estate with four blocks including the rather similar Arnside House now managed by the Keniston Housing Association, “providing low cost rented accommodation to people who find it difficult to compete in the private rented sector. We charge rents at below market rates. Most people who live in our properties have been referred to us through choice based lettings schemes run by local councils.”

Venus Fish Bar, shop John Ruskin St, Walworth, Southwark, 1989 89-1c-25 — *Venus Fish Bar, John Ruskin St, Walworth, Southwark, 1989 89-1c-25*

Until 1937 this street was called Beresford Street and like many other streets was renamed when the LCC finally decided to rid London of duplicated street names. They had begun the job when they were formed in 1889, but only really got down to it seriously in the mid 1930s. The name John Ruskin Street was chosen to remember the prominent Victorian writer, philosopher and art critic who died in 1900.

Ruskin grew up in nearby Herne Hill and was mainly educated at home (as were many children of wealthy families.) But at the age of 15 he spent a year attending the school in Camberwell run by Thomas Dale, who earlier had been the first professor of English at any English university. But Dale left London University after only a couple of years, finding it too “godless” and set up his own school.

Probably what most people now remember about Ruskin was his failure to consummate his marriage with Effie Gray, allegedly because of his discovery on his wedding night that unlike the classical statues with which he was familiar, real women had pubic hair. Their marriage was eventually annulled 6 years later. Perhaps the name of the Venus Fish Bar had some connection with this story.

BRAC is something of a mystery, but I think it may simply be from bric-à-brac as I think this was a business selling secondhand furniture and small objects such as we might now find at car boot sales. But there could be a quite different explanation, and suggestions for what BRAC here could stand for as an acronym are welcome. The BRAC building has been demolished and replaced by a block of flats but the building on the left remains, now residential.

*West End Hair Styling, John Ruskin St, Walworth, Southwark, 1989 89-1c-26*

West End Hair Styling at 13 John Ruskin St where pensioners could get a trim for £1.50 is now I think a travel agent, having been for some years a bar and restaurant.

The first post on this walk on January 8th 1989 was Elephant, Faraday, Spurgeon & Walworth Road.

Liverpool Grove & Octavia Hill

This continues my posts on my walk in Walworth on 8th January 1989. The previous post was People’s Health, Chapel Furniture, Sutherland Square & Groce Bros.

St Peter's Church, Liverpool Grove, Walworth, Southwark, 1989 89-1c-63 — *St Peter’s Church, Liverpool Grove, Walworth, Southwark, 1989 89-1c-64*

Liverpool Grove was designated as a conservation area in 1982 as the Octavia Hill (Liverpool Grove) Conservation Area. The street runs east from Walworth Road with this vista of St Peter’s Church, then goes south of the church, continuing to the east as far as Portland Street (named after an earlier Prime Minister, William Cavendish-Bentinck, 3rd Duke of Portland.)

Churchyard, St Peter's Walworth and Trafalgar House, Walworth, Southwark, 1989 89-1c-65 — Churchyard, St Peter’s Walworth and Trafalgar House, Walworth, Southwark, 1989 89-1c-65

The area to the east of the Walworth Road was first developed around the end of the wars against Napoleon, and Liverpool Grove gets its name from Robert Banks Jenkinson, 2nd Earl of Liverpool who was the Tory Prime minister from 1812 to 1827. So far as I’m aware he had no particular connection with the area. His almost 15 years as prime minister makes him the third longest serving after Sir Robert Walpole and William Pitt the Younger. A rather odder claim to fame is that he was the first of our prime ministers to wear long trousers.

Rear, St Peter's Church, Liverpool Grove, Walworth, Southwark, 1989 89-1c-66 — *Rear, St Peter’s Church, Liverpool Grove, Walworth, Southwark, 1989 89-1c-66*

The development of the area created a need for a new church, and Sir John Soane (1753-1837) was appointed as architect with St Peter’s Church being consecrated in 1826. It is now Grade I listed. It was the first church designed by Sir John Soane and badly damaged during WW2, then rebuilt in 1953.

*Octavia Hill Housing, Liverpool Grove, Walworth, Southwark, 1979 89-1c-53*

There are some remains of the first early Georgian and later Victorian housing in the area but the largest area around St Peter’s Church belonged to the Church of England and by the end of the 19th century had become one of LOndon’s most densely populated slums – or ‘rookeries’ as they were known.

*Octavia Hill Housing, Liverpool Grove, Walworth, Southwark, 1979 89-1c-54*

In 1904 the Church asked Octavia Hill, (1838-1912) one of the leading housing reformers since the 1860s to oversee the redevelopment of the area. She set new standards for working class housing and the estate includes cottage style terrace houses and three-storey tenement flats, some reflecting a Regency Style and others Arts and Crafts, in Liverpool Grove and side-streets from it including Saltwood Grove, Worth Grove, Portland St, Wooler St,

*Worth Grove, Liverpool Grove, Walworth, Southwark, 1979 89-1c-55*

Although the estate has a fairly high population density, Hill was also inspired by the Garden City Movement and the Arts and Craft village style development included the planting of many street trees; they or possibly their later replacements are very clear in my photographs.

*Worth Grove, Liverpool Grove, Walworth, Southwark, 1979 89-1c-43*

Her development from 1904-1914 remains largely intact and at least externally little altered, with only a very small area of Second World War bomb damage being rebuilt to a similar design. There was rather more redevelopment of the surrounding area in the 1950s.

*Merrow St, Walworth, Southwark, 1979 89-1c-46*

The area is an incredibly well preserved example of early twentieth century social
housing, with a very different scale to much of the large blocks of the era by housing associations such as Peabody.

This walk will continue in a later post.

The first post on this walk was Elephant, Faraday, Spurgeon & Walworth Road.

NHS and Housing Marches in East London, 2014

NHS and Housing Marches in East London, 2014

Save our Surgeries on NHS 66th Birthday – Whitechapel

The National Health Service came into operation in the UK on 5th July 1948, established by a Labour government despite considerable opposition from the Conservative Party and some doctors’ organisations. In most recent years there have been protests marking the anniversary against the increasing privatisation of the system, large parts of which have now moved away from being provided by the NHS itself to being provided by private companies, motivated by profits rather than public service.

The opposition to Aneurin Bevan’s plans in the 1940s led to a number of compromises, but the NHS was launched with three basic principles – to meet the needs of everyone, to be free at the point of delivery, and to be based on clinical need rather than the ability to pay. Although those principles remain, there are some respects in which they are not entirely met.

Prescription charges – currently £9.35 per item – were introduced in England in 1952, removed from 1965-8 but then re-introduced, remaining free for under-16s and over 60s, with some other exceptions. And we pay too for NHS dentistry, and many people find it impossible to get dental treatment under the NHS as no practice in their area will take them on.

Access to GPs and other services at surgeries around the country is also much more difficult for many, and it can be difficult or impossible to get an appointment in a timely fashion. Many services dealing with relatively minor medical issues are no longer available, and people have either to pay for them or continue to suffer. Some of these problems have been exacerbated by the take-over of many surgeries by healthcare companies as a part of the creeping privatisation of the NHS.

Twenty years ago, when I had a hospital stay of several weeks, hospitals have been forced to put some essential services – such as cleaning – out to tender, resulting in two of the three hospitals I was in being in filthy conditions.

In 2014, cuts in funding were threatening the closure of surgeries in Tower Hamlets as they failed to pay for the extra needs faced in inner-city areas. Local hospitals were also threatened, particularly because of the huge debts from PFI contracts for the building an management of new hospitals. The deals with the private sector made under New Labour have left the NHS with impossible levels of debt – and the companies involved with high profits, continuing in some cases for another 20 or 30 years.

After a short rally with speakers including the local mayor and MP as well as health campaigners including local GPs, there was a march by several hundreds to a larger rally in Hackney. But I left the marchers shortly after it passed Whitechapel Station.

Save our Surgeries on NHS 66th Birthday

Focus E15 March for Decent Housing – East Ham

Earlier I had been to photograph a march through East Ham and Upton Park in a protest over the terrible state of housing in England, and in London in particular. The event had been organised by Focus E15 Mums with the support of Fight Racism Fight Imperialism, but included many other protest groups from Hackney, from Brent and from South London on the march as well as groups including BARAC, TUSC and others.

They included a number of groups who had stood up and fought for their own housing against councils lacking in principles and compassion who had suggested they might move to privately rented accommodation in Birmingham, Hastings, Wales or further afield, but who had stood their ground and made some progress like the Focus E15 Mothers.

Many London councils are still involved with developers in demolishing social housing and replacing it with houses and flats mainly for high market rents or sale, with some “affordable” properties at rates few can afford, and with much lower numbers than before at social rents. Many former residents are forced to move to outer areas of London in what campaigners call ‘social cleansing’.

Families that councils are under a statutory duty to find homes for are often housed in single rooms or flats, sometimes infected by insects or with terrible damp, often far from their jobs or schools. Councils are under huge pressure and funding cuts sometimes make it impossible for them to find suitable properties, though often there are empty properties which could be used, particularly on estates such as the Caarpenters Estate in Stratford which Newham had been emptying since around 2004 in the hope of redeveloping.

Government policies and subsidies for housing have largely been a way of subsiding private landlords, and we need national and local governments – as I worte ” determined to act for the benefit of ordinary people, making a real attempt to build much more social housing, removing the huge subsidies currently given to private landlords through housing benefit, legislating to provide fair contracts for private tenants and give them decent security – and criminalising unfair evictions.” Housing really is a national emergency and needs emergency measaures.

Much of what is currently being built in London is sold to overseas buyers as investments and often left empty as its owners profit from the rapid rises in property values in London. We need to make this either illegal or to impose heavy duties on overseas owners including increased council taxes on empty properties.

The march attracted considerable attention on the streets of East London, and as I note several motorists stopped to put money in the collection buckets – something I’ve never seen happen before. I left the march as it reached East Ham Station to go to the NHS event.

Focus E15 March for Decent Housing

Haringey Residents protest housing sell-off

*Angry residentshold up placards and posterson the glass wall of the Civic Centre*

Haringey Residents protest housing sell-off – Wood Green, London. Monday 3 July 2017.

One of the London Labour councils whose housing policies were causing much local distress was Haringey, where the council was in process of setting up the Haringey Development Vehicle (HDV), Britain’s biggest collaboration yet between a local authority and a property developer, which will demolish a third of Haringey’s social housing, handing over half of an estimated £2 billion worth of publicly owned housing estates, schools, public facilities and private housing acquired through compulsory purchase orders to developer Lendlease.

Many feel that the cabinet system for local government is anti-democratic, removing decisions from the elected councillors as a whole to small highly selected groups for the convenience of administration. It means that ideas such as the HDV are not properly debated, and in this case it was about to be imposed without any real public consultation, and to many its only real purpose appeared to be to hand huge profits to the developer.

*Marching through Wood Green shopping centre*

The scheme to build 6,400 new homes would result in the demolition of many existing properties, and would have the consequence of driving many existing tenants and leaseholders out of the area as they would be unable to afford to buy the new properties or afford the rents. It would mean a massive wave of social cleansing.

*Police & security stop all but a few entering*

The formation of the HDV was opposed by many in the borough’s Labour Parties, trade unionists, Greens, tenants, small businesses and community groups and well over 500 of them came to make their opposition clear.

*A large crowd at the front of the CIvic Centre*

They had met at Ducketts Common and then marched through the centre of Wood Green, stopping briefly to block traffic on a road junction before moving on to the front of the Haringey Civic Centre where the council was meeting later to approve the HDV. They soon pushed aside the barriers which had been set up in front of the building to continue their noisy protest, with a row of police standing across the entrance.

*But others went around to protest in front of the large glass windows at the back*

After an angry and noisy protest outside some made a rush to get into the building though a side entrance. I decided not to try and enter with them, and security and police managed to stop all but a few and then locked the building, leaving even some of the councillors coming to attend the meeting unable to enter.

Many of the protesters moved the to the rear of the building and banged noisily on doors and large glass windows, and at one point the large glass panes began to flex by almost half an inch as people pushed against them and I moved back fearing they might shatter.

*Eventually police came and pushed the people away from the glass*

It looks from some of the pictures I took as if the protesters were actually inside, but they were on the outside of these large glass panels which gave a good view of the interior. Eventually police arrived and pushed the people back, forming a line in front of the glass.

*A rally continued in front of the building entrance*

I moved back to the front of the building where a rally was taking place with a number of mainly local speakers. This was still continuing as I left and the noise would have been very noticeable to councillors inside who were voting to go ahead with the scheme to give away around £2 billion to the Australian developers Lendlease.

Although this battle was lost, the war was at least partly won. The HDV was a major issue in the next set of council elections in the following May, with the many councillors from the left of the Labour Party strongly opposed to it getting elected, and the new council quickly voted to scrap the scheme to redevelop the Northumberland Park council estate with Lendlease. Instead Haringey set up its own housing company, Haringey Homes, and will carry out developments – including some with private developers such as Lendlease – in a way that avoids some of the social cleansing and retains more affordable and social rented properties. It has met some of the issues raised by the campaigners but by no means all.

The council’s new approach was in part made possible by a government decision to remove the cap on councils’ borrowing in their Housing Revenue Accounts (HRA) and also by a funding grant from the Mayor of London. But they still need to build some properties for market sale, though they state they are committed only to do this so they can deliver the “greatest possible number of council-rented homes.”

More at Haringey Residents protest housing sell-off.

Tories Out March – 1st July 2017

*Class War wrap a march steward in their banner at the start of the march*

Tories Out March – 1st July 2017: Five years ago, shortly after the Labour right working inside the party had managed to prevent a Corbyn victory by sabotaging the campaign for the 2017 General Election, the People’s Assembly Against Austerity organised a march through London calling for Theresa May and the Conservatives to go.

Of course they didn’t go, and later when Boris Johnson called an election over Brexit, he gained a landslide victory, rather than the close call in 2017 which left Theresa May having to bribe the Northern Irish DUP, a deeply bigoted party with links to Loyalist terrorists to support her.

This reliance on the DUP has eventually led to the current problem over the Irish Sea border arrangements which Boris Johnson persuaded the EU to adopt as a vital part of his Brexit deal, and which the government is now pushing through a bill to enable us to renege on.

And the Johnson administration has continued and worsened the Tory policies which in 2017 should have resulted in a Labour victory. In my account of the protest march 5 years ago today I wrote

“The election showed a rejection of … austerity policies and the Grenfell Tower disaster underlined the toxic effects of Tory failure and privatisation of building regulations and inspection and a total lack of concern for the lives of ordinary people. The protesters, many of whom chanted their support of Jeremy Corbyn, say the Tories have proved themselves unfit to govern. They demand a decent health service, education system, housing, jobs and living standards for all.”

*Rev Paul Nicolson from Taxpayers Against Poverty rings his bell*

The full facts of the sabotage of the Labour election campaign from inside the party had not then come to light – and we are still waiting for the Forde inquiry into the leaked report which exposed the racism, hyper-factionalism and electoral sabotage by party officials as well as the misguided attempts of the Corbyn leadership such as the expulsion of Jackie Walker and the resignations of Chris Williamson and Ken Livingstone.

But although this was largely a march of Labour supporters there were still a number of groups on the march who were critical of Labour’s policies and the practices of London Labour councils, particularly on housing, where councils are “demolishing council estates and colluding with huge property developers to replace them with expensive and largely private housing. It is a massive land grab, giving away public land often at far below market value and pricing the former residents out of London in what they call ‘regeneration’ but is quite clearly a process of social and ethnic cleansing.”

It is also a process that has resulted in considerable personal financial advantage for some of those who have led it, with councillors and officers either leaving to work for the developers or in organisations set up by councils to manage their estates. Setting up organisations such as the TMO responsible for the unsafe condition of Grenfell Tower has enabled these bodies to hide information about such activites as using consultants to advise them on circumventing adequate fire inspections outside of the purview of Freedom of Information requests.

Most obvious among these groups was Class War, alway ready to make their views known and to challenge authority. At the start of the march close to the BBC they had a little run-in with the march stewards, which resulted in them briefly wrapping their banner around one of him – though of course they soon released him. Later at the rally in Parliament Square I unfortunately missed a confrontation in which Lisa McKenzie stood in front of both Len McCluskey, General Secretary of Unite the Union and Labour Leader Jeremy Corbyn and loudly asked them the simple question ‘When are you going to stop Labour councils socially cleansing people out of London?’. Both men simply ignored her and walked away.

Much more about the event and many more pictures at Tories Out March.

Housing Crisis & the Carpenters Estate

Housing Crisis & the Carpenters Estate: Like many other areas, the 1945 Labour government laid the foundations of a sensible policy on housing which has now been lost. Among other things the 1947 Town and Country Planning Act brought in the need for planning permission and included a charge on developers which was assessed as the difference between the cost of the undeveloped land and its value after it had been developed. It gave local authorities the power to use compulsory purchase and either develop land themselves or lease it for private developers, and provided government grants to authorities for major redevelopment.

Times were hard after the war, and there were shortages of material with so much needing to be done. Even so around 600,000 new council homes were built in the first five years, and built to high standards. One of the election-winning pledges made by the Conservatives for the 1951 election was that they would build 300,000 houses a year – something they managed under Housing Minister Harold Macmillan in 1953, including both private and council houses, but it was achieved in part by reducing the standards of properties.

The Tories made other changes, including removing the development charge and limiting government subsidies, which in 1956 became limited to the building of high rise flats. While Labour had seen council housing as a way to provide good quality housing affordably to all, the Conservatives increasing limited its scope to providing only for the least well off, with private development and private leasing providing good profits for building firms and private landlords at the expense of house buyers and tenants of private rented properties.

Although it was Labour who had first proposed the idea of ‘right to buy’ it was of course Thatcher who made it policy and introduced it in a way which was intended to severely reduce the amount of council housing, in particular forbidding the use of the receipts from sales to
build new council homes. Cash-starved local authorities were often unable to keep up proper maintenance of their housing stock and much was allowed to deteriorate.

Labour under Blair and Brown continued the Tory policies, including the transfer of council run properties to housing associations, and amplified their effects with their programme of ‘regeneration’ which led to the wholesale replacement of large council estates – most still in sound condition which could have cheaply been repaired and brought up to current standards. But developers profited hugely from demolition and redevelopment for private sale and councils hoped also to cash in, though in some cases they made a significant loss, as at the Heygate in Southwark, where around 1200 council homes were demolished, the tenants and leaseholders displaced largely outside the area, and the two and a half thousand new properties built included only around 80 at social rents. Other Labour policies, including the disastrous Private Finance Initiative also worsened the housing crisis.

You can read very much more detail on the history of council housing on the website Municipal Dreams and in the book by the site’s author Municipal Dreams: the Rise and Fall of Council Housing published in 2019 which presents a detailed and balanced view.

The young mothers of Focus E15 came up against the the housing crisis when their Labour Council in Newham decided they should be evicted from their hostel. Most were told they had to move into private rented properties with little or no security of tenure miles away from families, friends and facilities in the Stratford area, some in Wales or the north of England. They got together and decided to fight the council, then run by elected Mayor Robin Wales and its policy of removing the poor from the area – social cleansing.

Newham is a borough with one of the worst housing problems in the country, and although there has been a huge building programme, partly around the 2012 Olympic site, this is largely student housing or private development. But one council estate close to the centre of Stratford had been largely empty for around ten years. Newham had ‘decanted’ the residents beginning in 2004 hoping to cash in on what would be a prime development site. The Carpenters Estate was a very popular estate, with low rise housing and three tower blocks overlooking the Olympic Park, a stone’s throw from the excellent transport links of Stratford Station and the town centre.

For some years Newham had hoped to sell off the area as a new campus for University College London, but local opposition and protests by students and academics at UCL led to the college abandoning the plans. In 2020 the council handed over the regeneration project its Housing Company Populo Living.

Focus E15 came to the Carpenters Estate on Monday 9th June 2014 to highlight the scandal of the empty homes, bringing with them life-size or larger colour portraits of the mothers which they pasted on the shuttered windows of a small block of flats at the centre of the estate, along with posters stating ‘We Could be Here’, ‘This home needs a family’, ‘These homes need people’, ‘You could be here’.

The protest gained some publicity for their campaign, which had moved on from being simply about the mothers to a much more general ‘Housing For All’ campaign, which still continues, with the group holding a weekly Saturday Morning stall on Stratford Broadway, supporting homeless families in getting proper treatment from the council and preventing evictions in the area.

I returned with Focus E15 to the Carpenters Estate a few months later in September when on the first anniversary of the start of their campaign they occupied this low-rise block of flats on ‘Open House Day, gaining national publicity, staying in occupation for around two weeks, and have photographed various other of their events.

Focus E15 Mums Expose Carpenters Estate

Vedanta, Tampons, Roma, Monsanto & Mental Health

Vedanta, Tampons, Roma, Monsanto & Mental Health – there was a varied array of protests in London on Saturday 21st May 2016, and I was kept busy photographing them. Fortunately most were within walking distance of each other in central London, but I ended the day with a rally and march in Stratford.

Foil Vedanta at Jaipur Literary Festival – Royal Festival Hall, Southbank

I rushed from Waterloo station to the nearby Royal Festival Hall where I found campaigners from Foil Vedanta protesting against Vedanta’s sponsorship of the Jaipur Literature Festival. They say Vedanta, the most hated company on Earth, causing pollution, illness, displacement, poverty and deaths by its mining operations, sometimes criminal, in India, Zambia, South Africa and Australia, is attempting to whitewash its image by sponsorship of the festival.

They briefly interrupted a presentation in the main space of the Clore Ballroom to make their case. Earlier Foil Vedanta and Round Table India had sent an open letter to authors who had agreed to appear, signed by around 50 mainly Indian writers, poets, academics and activists, informing them of Vedanta’s criminal operations, and calling on them to withdraw, and some had done so, with others expected to criticize Vedanta in their presentations.

After the interruption the campaigners withdrew to the rear of the area where they continued to hand out leaflets and brief journalists, watched closely by security who insisted they keep the entrance clear but did not otherwise intervene.

More at Foil Vedanta at Jaipur Literary Festival.

Tampon tax now Osbourne! – Parliament Square

Campaigners met in Parliament Square and then marched to present a letter to Downing St calling on the government to fulfil their pledge to axe the tax on tampons. A massive campaign and lobby resulted in the removal of regulations preventing the removal of tax but it is still being levied.

Prominent in the protest were those from the 50:50 Parliament campaign for equal representation of women and men in Parliament who say that if there were more women in Parliament there would not be taxes like this – and much less of the public-school bickering that often dominates the House of Commons.

More at Tampon tax now Osbourne!

‘Dosta, Grinta, Enough!’ Parliament Square

As the Tampon Tax campaigners left on their march to Downing St, four horse drawn vehicles arrived for the protest by Roma, Gypsies and Travellers against the hardening attacks against their way of life.

Heritage wardens and police told them it was was against bylaws to bring horses on to the square and after a short rally on the grass they led protesters in repeated circuits of the roadway around the square before leaving as the main rally on the corner of the square started.

Changes in the laws have allowed local authorities to stop providing traveller sites, and laws against fly-grazing have made finding places to stay and moving around the country much harder. Alterations in local planning guidance have meant that local planning laws have been used in a discriminatory fashion to prevent them using land even when they own it – as at Dale Farm. The ‘Dosta, Grinta, Enough!’ protest called attention to these attacks by the government on their ethnicity and demanded an end to 500 years of persecution.

More at ‘Dosta, Grinta, Enough!’

March Against Monsanto Rally – Downing St

It was a day of several hundred world-wide protests against Monsanto, but there had been little publicity for the London protest and attendance for disappointing, and although there were good speeches these were to a small group of dedicated activists.

*Among the listeners were a couple of bees and this cow*

Monsanto dominates the worlds markets for seeds and agrochemicals at the expense of small scale farmers and communities around the world and is forcing harmful pesticides and genetically modified seeds on farmers in their corporate control of the world’s food system. The company has sued thousands of small farmers in the US and elsewhere to protect its patents which cover a wide range of crops and other products.

More at March Against Monsanto Rally.

Housing is a Mental Health Issue – Stratford

From Westminster the Jubilee Line takes a little over 20 minutes to get to Stratford Station, outside which I met Focus E15 housing campaigners who were holding a rally and march. It was Mental Health Awareness Week and they were protesting against Newham council’s policy of social cleansing, highlighting the mental health issues that arise from housing problems.

There is a huge boom in building around Stratford given great impetus by the 2012 Olympics, but as speakers made clear when the march paused in front of some of the the high-rise housing, this is being built largely for the rich – while those unable to afford sky-high market rents are being forced out. They say Newham is causing mental health problems for vulnerable people through evictions and placements with insecure tenancies away from families, friends and support systems in cities and towns across the UK.

*Good homes on the Carpenters Estate have been kept empty by Newham for over 10 years*

The new tall blocks also produce a hostile micro-climate at ground level, and when the march approached one of the most recent, gusts of wind tore one of the banners in two. The march ended on the pavement outside Wilco’s in Stratford Broadway, where Focus E15 hold their regular Saturday morning street stall.

More at Housing is a Mental Health Issue.

Holloway, Nakba, Refugees & Topshop

Holloway, Nakba, Refugees & Topshop – Six years ago, the 14th May 2016 was also a Saturday, and like today there was a protests for Nakba Day, the ‘day of the catastrophe’, remembering the 80% of Palestinians forced to leave their homes between December 1947 and January 1949, but also several others on the streets of London which I covered.

Reclaim Holloway – Holloway Road

Local MP and Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn spoke outside London Met on Holloway Rd at the start of the march by Islington Hands Off Our Public Services, Islington Kill the Housing Bill and the Reclaim Justice Network to HMP Holloway demanding that when the prison is closed the site remains in public hands, and that the government replace the prison with council housing and the vital community services needed to prevent people being caught up in a damaging criminal justice system.

A group of around a hundred then marched from there to Holloway Prison, apparently already largely emptied of prisoners, and held a long rally there with speeches by local councillors, trade unionists and campaigning groups. Islington Council would like to see the prison site and adjoining housing estate then owned by HM Prisons used for social housing rather than publicly owned land being sold for private development.

The Ministry of Justice sold the site to housing association Peabody for £81.5m in 2019 and their plans include 985 homes and offices, with 60% of so-called affordable housing as well as a women’s building with rehabilitation facilities reflecting the site’s history. The development stalled in February 2022 with Peabody saying they were unable to afford the money needed to fit out the women’s centre.

Reclaim Holloway

68th Anniversary Nabka Day – Oxford Street

Protesters made their way along Oxford St from their regular Saturday picket outside Marks & Spencers, handing out leaflets and stopping outside various shops supporting the Israeli state for speeches against the continuing oppression of the Palestinian people and attempts to criminalise and censor the anti-Zionist boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) movement.

Nabka Day, the ‘day of the catastrophe’ remembering the 80% of Palestinians forced out of their homes between December 1947 and January 1949 is commemorated annually on May 15th, but the protest was a day earlier when Oxford Street would be busier. The Palestinians were later prevented by Israeli law from returning to their homes or reclaiming their properties, with many still living in refugee camps.

The protesters included a number of Jews who are opposed to the continuing oppression of the Palestinians by the Israeli government. A small group of counter protesters shouted insults and displayed Israeli flags, accusing the protesters of anti-Semitism but the protest was clearly directed against unfair and illegal policies pursued by the Israeli government rather than being anti-Semitic. The counter-protesters tried unsuccessfully to provoke confrontation, standing in front of the marchers and police had at times to move them away.

68th Anniversary Nabka Day

Vegan Earthlings masked video protest – Trafalgar Square

Vegans wearing white masks stood in a large circle in Trafalgar Square holding laptops and tablets showing a film about the mistreatment of animals in food production, bullfighting, etc. The protest was organised by London Vegan Actions and posters urged people to stop eating meat to save the environment and end animal cruelty.

Vegan Earthlings masked video protest

Refugees Welcome say protesters – Trafalgar Square

Another small group of protesters stood in front of the National Gallery held posters calling for human rights, fair treatment and support for refugees. Some held a banner with the message ‘free movement for People Not Weapons’.

Refugees Welcome say protesters

Topshop protest after cleaners sacked – Oxford St

Finally I was back on Oxford St where cleaners union United Voices of the World (UVW) was holding one of protests outside Topshop stores around the country following the suspension of two cleaners who protested for a living wage; one has now been sacked. Joining them in the protest were other groups including Class War, cleaners from CAIWU and other trade unionists including Ian Hodson, General Secretary of the BWAFU and Shadow Chancellor John McDonnell.

*Shadow Chancellor John McDonnell, MP and Ian Hodson, Baker’s Unions General Secretary outside Topshop*

The Oxford Street Topshop was heavily defended by police, as well as by illegal extra security guards wearing no ID. Several hundred protesters held up banners and placards and with the help of the police blocked the entrance to the shop, though the protesters made no serious attempt to enter the building.

*Jane Nicholl of Class War poses on a BMW as they block Oxford Circus*

After a while some of the protesters, led by the Class War Womens Death Brigade, moved onto the road, blocking it for some minutes as police tried to get them to move. The whole group of protesters then moved to block the Oxford Circus junction for some minutes until a large group of police arrived and fairly gently persuaded them to move.

*UVW’s Petros Elia argues with a police officer outside John Lewis*

They moved off, but rather than going in the direction the police had urged them, marched west along Oxford St to John Lewis, where they protested outside the entrance, where cleaners have a longstanding dispute. The cleaners who work there are outsourced to a cleaning contractor who John Lewis allow to pay low wages, with poor conditions of service and poor management, disclaiming any responsibility for these workers who keep its stores running.

There were some heated exchanges between protesters and police but I saw no arrests and soon the protesters marched away to the Marble Arch Topshop branch to continue their protest.

Topshop protest after cleaners sacked