TENANTS can fight off greedy developers if only they “stick together” and avoid divide and rule tactics, activists from the successful New Era for All campaign told an anti-gentrification rally yesterday.

Protesters marched to Barnet town hall after a fiery public meeting on the endangered West Hendon Estate in north London.

Over 400 residents — including non-secure tenants and leaseholders — at the estate face seeing their homes demolished and replaced with luxury flats.

Leaseholders on the estate — mostly former tenants — facing compulsory purchase orders say they will be unable to buy flats in London with the paltry compensation Barnet Council has offered.

But residents have formed a vibrant campaign group to fight the proposals — following the successes of campaigns at the New Era Estate and the Focus E15 hostel in east London — whose campaigners joined the rallies.

New Era for All’s Danielle Molinari said campaigners should “make a nuisance of themselves” — and most importantly resist attempts by council officials and housing chiefs to set residents against one another.

“You have to stick together,” she said. “They wanted to have individual meetings with us, but if you go individual your barriers go down.”

And she told the Star: “We’ve set a precedent, so they can say: ‘they’ve done it, so we can do it’.”

Residents recalled horror stories of being told by council chiefs to turn to charities for essential repairs.

Focus E15 mum Jasmine Stone told the meeting: “Everybody deserves a decent place to live. ‘Affordable’ housing is an absolute joke. Working-class people can’t afford that at all.

“But when we work together we can make a difference. Keep up the fight, keep resisting.”

They were joined by Unite Community, whose co-ordinator Pilgrim Tucker said: “We know from what happened at New Era that people can take on the councils and the private landlords and win.”

Our West Hendon campaigner Paulette Singer said: “Today’s event is about campaigners across London coming together to give the message that we will not stand by and watch people be forced out of their homes and out of London.”