All of council’s social housing will be built by private developers

A local authority’s plan to transfer all council home building in the borough to private developers has been met with outrage from its local opposition and residents.

Southwark council’s cabinet last Tuesday approved a change of tack from the “direct delivery” model of development – whereby the council builds homes itself on land it owns or acquires – to a “development agreement” model, used for the Aylesbury Estate redevelopment and which will see the council hand over land to a developer in exchange for building affordable housing units – along with market rate housing.

The minimum level of affordable housing should be 50 per cent, but it also is based on what developers say is financially viable, meaning it could be far less than 50 per cent.

Liberal Democrat group leader Cllr Victor Chamberlain said: “The council have not delivered the homes we need, and now they’re throwing in the towel.

“There are huge question marks over this developer-led approach, particularly about guaranteeing we get genuinely affordable homes.”

In response to criticism, Councillor Helen Dennis said it was “absurd” to question the council’s commitment to creating new council homes.

The cabinet member for new homes and sustainable development said the decision comes as the local authority faced “increasing challenges and costs” and that it must be “responsible” with its finances to find new ways to deliver the homes.

Cllr Dennis said: “What we are proposing is a tried and tested way of delivering new homes, including council homes. The alternative would be to stop building, and given the scale of the housing crisis, we are not prepared to do that.”

But the opposition raised Walworth’s Aylesbury Estate as an example of the risks of being tied to a developer’s viability claims. 

Aysen Dennis, 66, recently moved to a new home in Bradenham Court – part of the wider regeneration of the Aylesbury Estate, where she previously lived for 30 years.

She said: “The council said they learnt from Aylesbury, but they didn’t. They don’t want to learn from their mistakes because profit is more important than the community who elected them.

“They cannot wash their hands of their responsibility to council tenants by passing us on to the private developers who are responsible for the loss of council homes across London.”

The Aylesbury Estate was built by Southwark council in the 1970s. With 2,700 flats, once completed it was one of the biggest public housing estates in Europe, but over the next 40 years it fell into disrepair.

In 2014, the local authority made the controversial decision to demolish and rebuild the estate in partnership with developers including Notting Hill Genesis (NHG) – which doubles as a housing association.

Last year a Freedom of Information (FOI) request submitted by the local campaign group 35 per cent, revealed that the council attempted to acquire about 2,000 of the site’s 3,575 homes, fuelling speculation that NHG was struggling to build the homes it committed to in 2015.

Ms Dennis said: “The regeneration here has been going for 25 years and they haven’t finished the first out of four phases.

“Aylesbury was a wonderful community and I still miss all my neighbours, walking around the white corridors and everyone talking. 

“We don’t see each other here – you get in a lift and go up into your home. What they’ve done is classist.”

Cllr Dennis said: “We have completed or have on-site more than 3,000 new council homes. Right now there are 27 schemes under construction. 

“We won’t apologise for exploring every possible way to deliver more council homes across our borough.”

A spokeswoman for NHG said: “Our focus is to provide quality homes at below-market rents for people who would otherwise struggle to afford them. We reinvest our surplus to improve existing homes and to deliver new homes for Londoners too, including through regeneration projects such as Aylesbury.

“The Aylesbury estate is in desperate need of regeneration. Ever since we were appointed as Southwark council’s partner to regenerate the estate we have been committed to providing affordable, safe, energy efficient and high quality homes for the community.

“We are pleased that many tenants, such as Aysen, have already been able to move into their new home and will continue working closely with Southwark council to deliver our plans.”

Pictured top: The Aylesbury Estate in Southwark is due to be demolished and rebuilt (Picture: Robert Firth)