The Norwood Forum have their AGM this Saturday. If you are able to attend, please could you raise the forum's approach to the situation at Central Hill?
The forum, for all its support of communities that campaign to stop the developments at Windsor Grove and site 18/19, is surprisingly quite on the development of the largest estate facing regeneration in Lambeth.

Lambeth are continuing with the master planning phase to demolition the whole estate of 466 homes and increase its density by 2.5 to 1,200. This is despite residents who clearly are asking for the council to look at retrofitting, a sensible choice in the midst of an environmental, cost of building, and fuel dependency crisis - 700g of carbon are released just to create one brick!

The council admit that there will be a reduction in the availability of homes for the homeless during the regeneration process, which will last twenty or so years, and do not guarantee a significant increase of the 322 social homes that were on the estate when the cabinet decision to demolish was made in 2017.  Many could just be provided by other means without this costly and lengthy process.

The vast majority (over 80%) of the new homes are for open market sale, not for the homeless or for the families of Lambeth, who Homes for Lambeth was set up to house. These are unaffordable for nearly all the non-home-owning population of Gipsy Hill and Lambeth.

Homeless families are suffering at the heart of Lambeth Council's inability to tackle this issue and its obsession with demolishing and rebuilding.

We welcome the report by the Government Environmental Audit Committee, that states:

“Retrofit and reuse of buildings, keeping the carbon locked in, should be prioritised over new build.”

Helen Hayes is a member of this committee. May she stand on her credentials.