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Southwark Housing, Bermondsey Panoramas & Rembrandt Against Shell – 2014

Southwark Housing, Bermondsey Panoramas & Rembrandt Against Shell: On Thursday October 16th 2014 I went with housing campaigners on a march to Southwark Council Offices. They claimed that the council leader and other councillors and officers have accepted gifts and jobs from developers and were selling off council estates at knockdown prices. I had some time free after that and took a short walk along the Thames making some panoramas before rushing to the National Gallery where the Art Not Oil coalition were protesting outside a gala evening for special guests including unethical sponsors such as Shell.

CPOs for Southwark Councillors

Elephant to Southwark Council Offices

Southwark Housing, Bermondsey Panoramas & Rembrandt Against Shell

Housing campaigners from Southwark were joined by members of the Focus E15 Mums ‘Housing for All’ campaign at the base of the Strata Tower at Elephant and Castle, a tower nicknamed ‘The Razor’ for its three entirely decorative ‘greenwash’ rooftop wind turbines – which cannot be used as they generate unacceptable vibration for the upper floor flats.

Facing them was One The Elephant, then under construction, a 44 storey block of luxury flats with no social housing, being sold abroad, with ‘studio flats’ starting at around £320,000 or 640,000 Singapore dollars.

They marched to protest briefly at the Elephant Park Sales Office on the Walworth Rd before walking on through the Heygate council estate where over 1200 homes were demolished and the site sold to developers for a knock-down cost – apparently less than the costs of ‘decanting’ the tenants and far below its proper valuation. Despite this leaseholders were only given compensation of around half the true market value of property in the area, forcing them to move out into the suburbs to buy property in far less convenient areas giving them long and expensive work journeys.

The replacement by Elephant Park means a loss of over a thousand social housing units, with a small number of so-called affordable units at 80% of market rates, still well above what most Londoners can actually afford. The new flats were being sold to overseas buyers in Singapore and elsewhere as second homes, investment properties, homes for wealthy overseas students studying here, buy-to-let etc.

From there they walked through some of Southwark’s 1930’s and postwar council estates, now seen as prime targets for demolition of social housing. Its replacement with higher density high price ‘luxury’ flats would generate huge profits for the developers (and lucrative rewards for councillors and council officers.)

The march carried on to a similar area of council properties around Long Lane and Tennis Street where again similar changes – gentrification labelled as regeneration – seem likely, before going through Guy’s Hospital and London Bridge Station to Tooley St and the Southwark Council Offices.

There they held a short rally after which security stopped them entering to hand in letters for Southwark Council Leader Peter John and two other councillors containing ‘People’s Compulsory Purchase Orders‘ for their homes, but after much argument and the presence of police Liliana Dmitrovic of the ‘People’s Republic of Southwark’ and another protester were allowed in. As Southwark residents they argues they had a right to enter the council offices.

They went to reception and asked to see the three councillors and were told to take a seat and wait. They sat there for some time but eventually Stephen Douglas from Southwark Council came to tell them that all three named on the letters were in meetings and unavailable, but promised he would personally deliver the letters. They handed them in to him and left.

More on My London Diary at CPOs for Southwark Councillors.

Bermondsey Thames Panoramas

City Hall to Angel Wharf

I crosssed the road from the council offices and went through the gardens by City Hall to walk by the Thames, going briefly down Horselydown steps just downriver from Tower Bridge onto the foreshore.

I came back up to Shad Thames, a painful pastiche of its former industrial past. Quickly I made my way to the riverside path and walked on, stopping as usual at the footbridge across St Saviour’s Dock to take more pictures.

I walked on in some interesting lighting and got very involved in taking pictures, rather losing track of time. At West Lane I realised I was in danger of arriving late at Trafalgar Square and ran down to the bus stop on Jamaica Road.

Many more pictures – not all panoramic – at Bermondsey Thames Panoramas.

Art Not Oil – Rembrandt Against Shell

National Gallery

The Art Not Oil coalition had earlier gate-crashed the press launch of the Rembrandt exhibition at the National Gallery in a protest against oil company sponsorship of the arts and the privatisation of gallery staffing.

*Protesters with banners in front of the Sainsbury wing*

I arrived in time to meet them on the steps of St Martin-in-the-Fields just before they marched the few yards to the National Gallery where a gala evening was being held for special guests – including from the sponsors – and highly ranked staff.

They turned down a protest pen the police had set up some distance from the entrance the guests would be using where their protest would not be noticed (what the police call ‘facilitating’ but campaigners know is minimising) and instead protested close to the entrance. Here there were some speeches and a repeat performance of their earlier performance which included a short playlet as well as some specially written songs.

Some of those who appeared at the press launch were professional actors now on stage elsewhere and so there were some changes in the cast. But it was still a very professional performance.

Here is the Art Not Oil statement:

The presence of unethical sponsors like Shell and the contracting of external security firms shows the growing influence the private sector is having over our arts and culture. With its meagre contribution to the gallery, Shell is buying social legitimacy for its dodgy deeds worldwide, including:
- its failure to clean up its multiple spills in the Niger Delta
- its reckless plans to drill in the Arctic for yet more oil
- its tar sands projects in Canada that are undermining Indigenous people's      rights

More at Art Not Oil Rembrandt Against Shell.

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Walking the Rip-Off – Heygate & Aylesbury – 2012

Walking the Rip-Off – Heygate & Aylesbury – On Sunday 29th April 2012 I joined around 35 others for ‘Walking the Rip-Off’ organised by Southwark Notes Archive Group and Aylesbury Tenants First (and here) which started in the “community gardening projects of Heygate” and went on “to the Aylesbury for a look and learn around the massive site.”

It was an interesting and illuminating experience. There were around 35 people altogether despite the rain and a terrible weather forecast, and fortunately it slackened off and the sun actually came out.

The Heygate Estate has now completely gone, demolished in 2014. There has been a loss of over a thousand council tenancies in the area, and only around 25 of those tenants displaced from the Heygate are thought to have been rehoused in the area . The well-designed and largely solidly built estate which probably had at least another 50 years of life with proper maintenance and necessary refurbishment has been replaced by lower quality buildings with many flats owned by overseas investors which are unlikely to last as long.

As Southwark Notes reported in 2015, developers Lend Lease were marketing its replacement, Elephant Park “overseas for wealthy off-plan buyers looking for second homes, investments, buy-to-lets, homes for their student sons and daughters etc.“

The individual properties in the new estate are smaller – some best described as poky – and rented properties are several times more expensive. In 2021 the social rent on a new housing development in nearby Bermondsey was advertised at £295.50, which was £130 above the government’s social rent cap of £164.87 for a two-bed property. Many of those who lived on the Heygate have been forced to move to outer areas of London or further afield to find housing they can afford. It has been social cleansing on a large scale.

Particularly badly affected were leaseholders who were forced to move and given payments that were derisory and a fraction of that needed to buy comparable properties in the area. You can find more details online on Southwark Notes.

There is find more information on the regeneration of the Elephant & Castle area on the 35% Campaign web site. This also has up to date information on other aspects of Southwark Council’s failures including the redevelopment of the Aylesbury estate, the disastrous redevelopment of the Elephant & Castle shopping centre and other scandals in the area.

The site took its name from Southwark Council’s minimum policy requirement of 35% affordable housing, 70% of which social rent which it has failed to meet on Heygate and numerous subsequent developments.

On the tour in 2012 we were able to visit several properties on the Heygate and Aylesbury estates, and I was very impressed by the quality of the accommodation and the obvious love and care the residents had taken in making them really personal homes. I was allowed to photograph inside some of them but did not put any of the pictures on line in 2012, and can no longer find them.

*From the 10th floor of Chiltern, Aylesbury Estate*

I returned to one of those flats a year ago for the Fight4Aylesbury exhibition which was held there. Later in the year Aysen Dennis in whose flat this was held agreed to be relocated to a new nearby council block, but she continues her fight to save what remains of the estate. This January she acheived a significant victory when the High Court overturned the planning decision for Phase 2B of the Aylesbury Estate demolition. It is now not clear how the remaining demolition of the estate will proceed.

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Fight4Aylesbury Exhibition

Last Friday I went to the first day of the Fight4Aylesbury exhibition which continues until 23 April 2023. It’s an unusual exhibition and one that is worth visiting if you can get to south London before it ends,

The exibition celebrates the struggle by residents on the Aylesbury Estate in Southwark to stay in their homes since the estate was first threatened in 1999 and takes over the flat of one of those still remaining, Aysen who writes:

Welcome to my home.

I am opening the doors to my flat for a collective clelbration of 20+ years of housing struggles to defend our council homes against social cleansing and gentrification. Our fight is ongoing.

Since 1999 the council has subjected us with privitisation, “re-generation” and now demolition. We, Aylesbury residents, other council tenant all over the country, and our supporters, have been resisting and are still resisting and defending our homes.

My home tells the story of this struggle.
Aysen

The Aylesbury estate, designed by Hans Peter “Felix” Trenton was one of the largest areas of council housing in Europe, built from 1963 to 1977 with 2,700 dwellings for around 10,000 residents in an area containing some earlier social housing a short distance south of the Elephant and Castle between East Street market and Burgess Park.

There are a number of large blocks of various heights, from 4 to 14 floors, all well designed and built to the high standards of the era, with rather larger rooms and more solid walls than current buildings. The estate also had a central boiler to supply heat more economically to the flats.

Southwark neglected the estate in the 1980s and 1990s, failing to carry out necessary maintenance and the estate and the estate environment became in poor conditions. The heating system in particular suffered. Southwark began to use this and the neighbouring Heygate Estate as ‘sink estates’, deliberately moving in families with various social problems and people with mental health issues. It was because the estate had become unpopular that Aysen, who had to leave Turkey after the 1980 coup, was able to get a flat here with her sister in 1993.

The estate came to get a reputation as “one of the most notorious estates in the United Kingdom“, reinforced by it becoming a popular area for TV crews filming “murder scenes, gun and drug storylines and gang-related crimes in soaps and gritty dramas.” In particular from 2004-15 Channel 4 used it in an “ident” for which they had added “washing lines, shopping trolley, rubbish bags and satellite dishes” to create what was described as “a desolate concrete dystopia.”

Its poor reputation led Tony Blair to hold his first speech to the press as Prime Minister in 1997 on the estate, promising that the government would care for the poorest in society. It was a promise that he and later prime ministers have spectacularly failed to keep.

Southwark Council’s response to the estate’s decay they had overseen was to try and wash their hands of it by trying to transfer it to a private housing association to be redeveloped. But a campaign by residents in 2001 led to this being soundly rejected – not surprisingly they voted against demolition, displacement, rising rents and smaller flat sizes.

Undeterred, Southwark decided to go ahead with the redevelopment themselves, producing new plans for demolition in 2005. This time they didn’t bother to ballot the residents.

*Solidarity collage which includes some of my images*

The plans were for a 20 year phased demolition, with rebuilding of modern blocks by a housing association. The generous public space of the estate would be reduced and the housing density almost doubled. The first phase was completed in 2013 and Phase 2 is currently underway. All four phases are due for completion around 2032, and the 12 storey Wendover block in which the exhibition is being held has already been largely emptied of residents and is expected to be demolished around the end of this year.

Residents have continued their fight to stop the redevelopment, with protests and in January 2015 housing activists and squatters occupied flats in one of the emptied blocks. Moving from block to block they were finally evicted 18 days later. The squatters occupied another building and again were evicted. Southwark spent £140,000 on a fence, completely destroyed all bathrooms, toilets, pipes and kitchens in empty properties and spent £705,000 on security guards to prevent further occupation.

Other protests took place, including one in which part of the fence was torn down, and various protests at council meetings. Aylesbury residents also joined with housing activists in Southwark and across London at various other protests. But although these brought the Aylesbury campaign and the scandals over housing to national attention, the demolition continues.

Part of the scandal has been the “well-oiled revolving door” between the council – councillors and officers – and developers. The toilet in the exhibition flat is devoted to Southwark Council, and in particular for its Leader for more than a decade Peter John, who stepped down in 2020. He described his years as a “decade of Delivery“; community; anti-gentrification collective Southwark Notes call it “a Wild West gold rush for developers.” A 2013 report showed that “20 percent of Southwark’s 63 councillors work as lobbyists” for developers in the planning industry.

Similar estates built with the same system elsewhere have been successfully refurbished at relatively low cost to bring insulation and other aspects up to current standards. These buildings will probably last into the next century and their demolition is expensive and incredibly wasteful of both the huge amount of energy that was embedded in them and and energy require to demolish and rebuild.

There is more to the exhibition – and you can see some hints of it in the pictures. After visiting the show I walked up four floors to the top of Wendover for the view. The windows were rather dirty and most fixed shut but I did find a few places where they were open slightly to let me take photographs of the views across London.

You can see a different set of pictures in my album Fight4Aylesbury Exhibition.