Save (Insert Any Estate Name Here)

So it needs to be said that a final decision has been made yet inclusding on the 'case-study' below, and may not be for years but how can we trust, in the current climate especially, that a good decision can be made?

Search 'david cameron layout for estates' and you get interesting results. 'corbusier housing' too.

'What do Theresa May and Le Corbusier have in common. Sadly the same discredited Modernist philosophy on urban planning and how to solve the housing crisis.' says https://andrewlainton.wordpress.com/2017/02/01/theresa-may-goes-all-le-corbusier-its-the-wrong-choice/


https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2017/mar/28/beautiful-place-hull-residents-bransholme-estate-50

The stereotypes are very wrong. Everyone knows they only get bad when they're allowed to by the very people who are supposed to ensure the opposite, to benefit the community and the people.

I'm sure this is the sort of thing that means Michael Gove can get away with saying we've all had enough of experts, and we are where we are. When you have something at least approaching what could be a successful example of housing build, a local council build, a council estate no less, in the heart of London, you'd think it would be held up as a source of some pride by...well, everyone. The very people who should be most supportive of it seem to be doing their best to ruin it, you can only assume for self-gain. Treating homes as a personal property portfolio, a nice 'project' for you to get a contract of some sort for, a way to take away an area from the very people who have built it into somewhere desirable is wrong on so many levels. There should not be repairs left too long until they cause distress to tenants or residents – in fact the terms of a lease mean repairs should of course be seen to by the landlord (council) but whether councils are more than just revenue collectors is another debate. You would, you'd imagine, take pride in maintaining the housing and ensure (again, as should be the case) that tenants and residents do the same. You would not overburden locals, who do appreciate what they've got, with bills while pressurising them by ignoring reports of anything that needs doing for months on end. You would appreciate a low-rise, spacious, green, open, community and realise you can have all this. You do not need high-rise, small-scale, concrete-covered, closed-off, deliberately run-down and looked-down on deliberately ghettoized areas.. You can solve a housing crisis with good planning and fair contracts that deliver on promises to help people from the area - rather than just a few millionaires. You'd realise you're dealing with lives rather than play a game. You would make the most of this green oasis in a probably most unexpected place, rather than planning to destroy it.

Here's a list of birds (wildlife sometimes more of a concern than humans) seen in the many trees (also probably going) and green environment of this estate just off the Old Kent Road, taken a case-study/example:
Green woodpecker
Lesser spotted woodpecker (yes, definitely, really)
Parakeets
Songthrush
Wrens
Starlings
European Goldfinches
Pied wagtails
Kestrels
Swallows or swifts, not sure
also dunnocks, magpies...the ones we take for granted.

There is plenty of green there, environmentally healthy areas front and back. The trees are magnificent, still very much alive – full green in summer, pink blossom in spring. They've survived the hurricane, served as play areas, sheltered when needed. If the likes of the Southwark Woods campaign didn't already, destroying here shows he council is not really concerned with the environment, unless it pays to pretend to be for regeneration purposes.

There's a community – playgrounds including a pitch, used by generations. There is even a Facebook page just for people who enjoyed growing up on the estate. However, too many are allowed to divide and conquer, grabbing for short-sighted self-interest, most not living here. And before it is mentioned - there is no NIMBY-ism from people there; this is a community of 200 homes not stacked in swaying skyscrapers, without a natural reserve. Again, would you lock the gates to the pitch so the pitch cannot be fully used? Would you plan to knock down one of the playgrounds for another small block?

The tower blocks are staying, which may give you some idea of where this is going – as noted in an earlier post. It's quantity over quality, at least where they can force it through and, they think, get away with it. The school on and very much part of, the estate, Pilgrim's Way, is to be expanded and moved – it was apparently news to planners when this was suggested that there's Ilderton Primary already not far away, and no real need to move Pilgrim's Way even closer – and in the process closer to Veolia's already rather unlovely enough recycling facility. More importantly maybe it's better to have Surestart and the school smaller but part of the community, rather than another anonymous generic building on top of the recycling plant and away from green areas.

If your home and everything you've invested in financially and emotionally is destroyed for no real good reason, you may be 'lucky' and get a new place as promised here and now elsewhere. There are now to be ownership and shared-ownership schemes, long leases and terms and fair prices paid. But will your new build home, so often complained about, be an improvement? Will the estate be an improvement? If you do have a flat in the tower blocks and can afford to try and put down some roots, get on the ladder by becoming a leaseholder, you'll probably be forced out by massive charges which the council attempt to justify by saying they need to do extensive repairs – which are mostly only extensive because they did not do ongoing small and proper work when needed and reported. Leaseholders, often targeted, put so much into supporting where they live financially and by caring for their homes but if you are one and can afford to stay, your life may be completely changed, and probably not for the better. A cap of their charges is badly needed (there are already plenty of questions about where local council money is actually going). Now the promises are that leaseholders who have their homes demolished, while of course just having to deal with the emotional and mental loss of what they have invested in and a forced move, will be given ways to stay in the area – described again as a very desirable one - and in the new builds, and tenants won't just be shipped out. Will the promises of nice shiny new modern properties come to pass, and if they do will they actually be an improvement of the more spacious current low-rise homes? It's just seemingly leading to destroying communities and lives for a few generous pay days for developers and council decision-makers. The real problem is that unless the mentality of those making decisions changes, or it is forced to by holding them to account rather than ignoring or rewarding them, what is seen as success now will just be left to run down again with more avoidable misery. All this can't help but apparently point to where the real desire to regenerate comes from, and it's not for any claims of improvement or helping an area, and certainly not about putting the people first. Listening and helping locals helps the community, not all this stress. This is how previous problems (found everywhere, not just here because it is an estate) have been sorted - and they have been sorted - now many wonder was it worth it? The community and the estate here - when looked after as it should be and so is allowed to be -  is a good one, one of the best. Let's hope we're wrong, but where then is the good in these any of these plans apart from to a very rich few standing to benefit from the deals? There's still time for this estate and others with many realising what's going on – also not just in these communities but even in new builds, which are often not up to standard or maintained as they should be. We shall see and hopefully it's not the case, but at the moment it seems like in another generation or two all parts of these plans will unfortunately be able to again be looked at as another expert mistake.

Guest Post

The Ongoing London Land-Grab

'guest post' - @rottensouthwark who I know...

Is there anything more to say? Maybe that's what is wanted, for you to be so ground down you won't or can't fight any more. But one last post, to sum up, because there probably is no more to be said and so we can say it all here. There can be no excuse that nobody knew – enough of us have been trying to get the message out there. Why the British media don't have this constantly somewhere in the news reports and why people have turned a blind eye (or will do until they come for their home too) only they know. And yes, it is that important, it is a tragedy happening here in The Greatest City In The World in the 21^st Century, and it is very relevant to what are the headline stories of the day.

Behind it all are local London councils. All seem to be involved, but from experience we will mainly refer here to Southwark, and its increasingly transparent (much like the council) leader, Peter John.

If the only thing you really care about is money and think you don't, you do in fact still have reason to dislike the choices of John, who is possibly the most disliked man in London right now (a call for suggestions on how to best 'regenerate' Peckham gained the response 'throw Peter John in the Thames'). His council is responsible, after claims of new affordable homes and job creation, for selling the land at the Elephant and Castle for a fraction of its worth, without delivering on the earlier claims. It also resulted in the displacement of many Londoners – both leaseholders and tenants - from the area that was their home, what they had helped to build and contributed much to, when it was sold off cheap. Their fight is ongoing, causing more distress and waste of council finds on legal fees rather than, say, repairs and homes. Of course, you may be interested in the type of money that means this type of deal is actually a great success. If so you may have been involved in the the attempt to throw Millwall out of Bermondsey, again with pie-in-the-sky justifications for the obvious greed and disregard for fans and community – just as Peter John was involved. Lewisham council was part of the group trying to 'regenerate' (yes again – you have to hate that word as much as we've come to) the area, but that didn't stop the likes of John trying to get in.

Now John, as is his wont, has appeared in the Southwark News to say he has resigned from the Millwall takeover to concentrate on Southwark - you know, what he gets paid hundreds of thousands for - because people have been on Twitter calling on him to leave. Nice try, but again this can be seen through by those who know what's going on. John has indeed been repeatedly told on Twitter (nice to know he gets the messages) to leave his position by people in Southwark, but this started well before the Millwall story was taken up by the likes of The Guardian. It was part of the outrage caused by his treatment of people at the Aylesbury and Heygate estates. What people really want is for John to leave as leader of the council.

Of course he thinks by cutting ties with the Millwall land-grab, trying to distance himself as much as possible from it, he can fool people into thinking he is doing what is best for the people he is supposed to be serving. That word 'serving' probably sends shivers down his spine, and judging by the general attitude displayed by most council workers in senior positions theirs too. The people of Southwark nearly all have a story of being treated with contempt, as a nuisance, someone getting in the way by the management at Southwark Council. People like John show behaviour that seems to see people not part of the council as getting in the way of their plans, which again seem to just be self-serving, super-rich pleasing schemes. Service charges are always having to be challenged, and who out of those paying really knows where the money is going? Overcharging is almost the norm – hopefully better audit laws are used, as they have already to reclaim thousands, to finally hold all councils to account.

People are not as stupid as the likes of Southwark council apparently like to believe, nor are the council so clever. John only seemingly really appears in the Southwark News for the type of self-justification mentioned above - tree needs saving, he appears with a tree; refugees need help, he appears looking solemn; a new roundabout at the Elephant – he appears in hi-visibility. Any serious answers are however not to be found.

That John was given an Honour is the final insult, and probably confirmation that he is doing exactly what he wants to serve his own needs - giving contracts to people who can get him to places like the palace - rather than what he should be.

It really does seem that many council workers are deluded, either unconsciously ('just doing what I have to') or deliberately, having something like narcissism. They perhaps spend too long in their overpaid local power bubble and start to get carried away, believing they really do own their part of London. They have gone a bit 'Kurtz', spent too long upriver believing their own hype (which, incidentally, only they create in the first place). Well of course, they don't own London, or the people in it, and they cannot just do what they want. At least, they can't if people start waking up, and increasingly it seems they have. As proof of this as well as their delusion you can point to that challenge at Millwall, which brought to wider attention their practices, and subsequent the cancellation of 'New Bermondsey' plans. Councils are seemingly getting carried away with their Messiah complex, kidding themselves and trying to fool others that they are helping people rather than doing the opposite which is what is actually happening, so they can go home at night and feel good about their bullying. That is what it is, it needs to be seen for that.

Most Londoners right now seem to have given up on the right to a home, and other rights. Be happy as you are in London, it's the coolest place anywhere right now (very important obviously...) but you'll never own that place you're renting. And it won't get any better than that place – that tiny, sky-scraping, barely affordable place. We love our city, but do get used to worrying too much about the future, and especially what the council may send next. Everyone feels this but especially a tenant who may just be thrown out, to another part of the country, or a leaseholder who will have what they've paid for devalued to the point they cannot afford to keep their home, and may be forced to move too. It is out of control, a land-grab across London of the likes that elsewhere would be seen as a disgrace and tragedy it is, a sign of the corruption at the heart of a leadership that needs change. Lives are ruined and destroyed – there is more than one way to take a life. This is what is happening right here and now. A system of greed like this leads at the polling booth maybe to Brexit, certainly to a President Trump. Social engineering and cleansing like this leads to promises made again to those in need, who will only be used and treated like this again in years to come unless the corruption is dealt with. The stress and worry created is a cause for shame and needs to be exposed and rooted out. It is felt at the root and can be dealt with there, by stopping the bad practices of the likes of Southwark and other local London councils.