Chelsea residents fight landlord's plan to sell off social housing estate
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Version 0 of 1. One of Britain’s highest paid social housing bosses has been accused of social cleansing over plans to evict low-income tenants to make way for multimillion-pound private homes in one of London’s richest enclaves. Chelsea residents have launched a campaign to block plans by Keith Exford, chief executive of Affinity Sutton, to demolish most of the Sutton Estate, which was established in 1913 expressly to provide “houses for use and occupation by the poor”. Exford, who was paid £291,490 last year, wants to rebuild it with 144 fewer affordable homes and 106 new private apartments, many expected to be worth more than £4m each. The campaign against the plans has won the backing of the comedian Eddie Izzard and the Labour MP Tom Watson. The scheme could deliver Exford’s operation a profit of well over £200m. New “affordable” tenancies could rise from £114 a week on a one-bedroom flat to about £520, residents fear. Almost half the floorspace in the new development will be for private sale, a move that residents have claimed is an attempt to profit from the boom in foreign buy-to-leave investors from countries such as China and Russia who flock to super-rich areas like Chelsea. The estate supports a community of teachers, cleaners and other workers, but the nearby shops reflect Chelsea’s super-rich side: an estate agent selling three-bedroom flats for £3.4m; a boutique selling a set of six glass tumblers for £750. Some tenants on the estate have been told they will be forced out by April, but they have not been told where they will be rehoused. One single mother with a baby, a child in primary school and a job as a health worker was told she may have to move out of London. “This is a form of social cleansing,” said Ian Henderson, chairman of the Save the Sutton Estate campaign. “Why is this so-called social landlord more worried about rich buy-to-leave investors rather than poorer people who have lived here for generations? The answer is money and that’s a slap in the face.” “Social housing is a euphemism,” said Tom Watson. “The entire political system is ignoring the plight of these residents and others like them across London. They are desperate and in despair. We have a housing market completely out of control. It can’t go on.” A spokeswoman for Affinity said: “Our core aim is to secure the future of social housing in Chelsea. We have sought to maximise the social housing on estate and the vast majority of the properties will be social. Although the remainder of the new homes will be for private sale, the revenue from the sale of these homes is necessary to fund the considerable cost of the redevelopment, as there is no government funding.” William Richard Sutton’s will Affinity Sutton’s roots can be traced to the bequest of William Richard Sutton, a Victorian businessman who founded Britain’s first door-to-door private parcel service. He died in 1900, and in his will, dated 15 August 1894, he left £1.5m for low-rental housing. The estate in Chelsea was built in 1913. The trust’s ambitions expanded in the 1920s and 1930s, building in cities around England. In 2006, the trust merged with another social housing group, Downland Affinity, to form Affinity Sutton. ... to build upon the sites to be purchased or acquired as aforesaid model dwellings for use and occupation by the poor Plans to rebuild the estate Last year Affinity Sutton announced plans to rebuild the Sutton Estate in Chelsea, claiming over a third of the homes were below the government’s minimum standards. It has removed tenants from 160 homes, many of which are now boarded up. Campaigners claim the owners are guilty of “enforced dilapidation … to facilitate plans to demolish the historic site”. It has guaranteed replacement social housing for residents with secured tenancies, but other families who have been placed in the vacant blocks in recent years will not be rehoused. The row is one of the first times a social landlord with charitable status, rather than a private investor, has been accused of social cleansing and profiteering from London’s soaring property prices. The campaign has been partly inspired by the withdrawal in December by US private equity firm Westbrook Partners from plans to evict residents from the New Era Estate in east London and triple rents. Doaa Borie, 37, a single mother of two boys, aged 10 and nine months, has lived in one of the flats on the Sutton estate for three years. She has been warned that she must leave in two months but has been given nowhere else to live. The council warned she may have to leave London altogether because they had no homes available. She has recently completed a degree in marketing from the University of Westminster, and is about to go back to work after maternity leave as a community health worker, but that is now at risk. She has already moved 13 times in eight years. “It feels like they want people to stay on benefits rather than going back to work,” she said. “I feel very sad about the way the government are dealing with people and housing. Keeping moving affects my son’s learning. He must have solidity but we don’t know where we are going to be tomorrow.” “It is awful,” added Kalpesh Shuklla, 46, a surveyor who has lived on the estate since he was two. “With all the private investors it will be less than 50% occupancy and it will become even less of a community round here. All they are trying to do is make a quick buck.” Affinity is planning to submit a planning application this spring to start work in 2016 with tenants back in new homes in autumn 2021. A spokeswoman for Affinity said: “We have consulted with tenants extensively, and 85% of those who have fed back to us are supportive of our plans.” |