Skip to main content

Earl’s Court take council to court over demolitions

EARL’S COURT residents opened a new front in their fight against posh property developers yesterday, serving a legal notice against council proposals to transfer their at-risk homes to a community landlord.

The legal strategy would save 760 homes on the West Kensington and Gibbs Green housing estates from demolition by property firm Capco and Hammersmith and Fulham Council.

Tenants’ group chairman Keith Drew said residents had been kept in the dark. Plans agreed to by the previous Tory council were clearly being changed, he said, but residents were “fed up” with being excluded from the current year-long talks “and no new scheme has been agreed.”

Locals have now called for their homes to be handed to a community-controlled housing association they’ve set up, letting them draw up their own regeneration plans that will stand in contrast to the destruction offered by Capco.

The previous Tory council gave Capco the go-ahead in 2013 — at the same time entering a secret deal to work against community campaigns opposing the scheme, which a top lawyer has condemned as “unlawful.”

OWNED BY OUR READERS

We're a reader-owned co-operative, which means you can become part of the paper too by buying shares in the People’s Press Printing Society.

 

 

Become a supporter

Fighting fund

You've Raised:£ 7,485
We need:£ 10,515
18 Days remaining
Donate today