A PUBLIC inquiry is to be held into plans by a Tory-run council to “regenerate” a council estate and allow developers to build homes unaffordable to existing tenants.

The Labour group on Barnet Council were successful in demanding a public inquiry yesterday into a Tory scheme for West Hendon that has been compared to Dame Shirley Porter’s 1986 “social cleansing” of Westminster. 

That scandal transformed rented council homes into luxury properties for wealthier people more likely to vote Tory.

Labour’s opposition to the West Hendon plans was welcomed by general union GMB.

“It is now clear that the Tory council embarked with an agenda not to improve the existing housing stock or develop new affordable social housing units. Instead they are using the new Tory-Liberal government legislation that allows the hiking of rents up to 80 per cent of market rates which will result in private homes only being built for the well off,” said GMB London region political officer Gary Doolan.

Labour councillor Devra Kay added: “This is not regeneration, it is redevelopment.”