Letters

THIRD OF NEW HOMES AFFORDABLE, NOT HALF

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3 June 2008

THE ELEPHANT and Castle redevelopment exposes Councillor Humphreys’ evasions about affordable housing in Southwark ('Reverend tells of fear….' May 22 2008).
 
Councillor Humphreys refers to housing corporation grants but there are none for the replacement housing for the Heygate Estate. This is because such funding is only available if councils build more socially rented housing than they are knocking down. This is not so on the Heygate, where 1100 homes are going and no more than that are replacing them, many well outside the Elephant. Without this funding Southwark has had to bargain with the housing associations to get about 450 social rented homes and even these will not be built until three years after the estate has been demolished.

At the Elephant itself there will only be 730 or so 'intermediate' affordable homes, and the same number of social rented homes. 

Taken together this means only a third of the 4200 new homes will be 'affordable', not half, as Councillor Humpreys says.

As for the Heygate, the stupidity of trying to move people from the estate without building their replacement homes has now been made visible by the row upon row of steel shutters that disfigure Kingshill and Swanbourne. Wedged between these are the remaining residents, who have the worst of all worlds - no immediate prospect of rehousing in either council stock or the early housing sites, but left to live in an ugly housing limbo. The Heygate Tenants’ and Residents’ Association protested loudly against the Heygate Action Plan when it was introduced in the summer and which is the cause of all the trouble, but they were ignored. 

The only way forward is for Southwark to come clean about how long the early housing sites are really going to take and to allow the people on the estate to decide themselves whether they want to leave or stay for the meantime.

The threat of eviction must be removed, not just delayed, and the timetable for demolition revised. 

Jerry Flynn, by email.

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Comments (1)

1. At 04:01 PM on 13 Jun 2008, Anne wrote:
Can Cllr Humphreys put a figure on affordable? Does one need to earn £10,000 or £100,000?
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