A 30-year war of attrition has been waged on council housing.  Under-investment, the Right to Buy “daylight robbery” of tenants’ rent, stigmatisation and assorted methods of privatisation have reduced a proud achievement of the welfare state to a shadow of its former self.  

Now the Con-Dem government is planning the coup de grace. Under the Orwellian guise of “estate regeneration,” tenants, particularly in London and other areas defined as “high value” by the property spivs, are facing a naked attempt to remove them from their homes.  

Forty estates around London have been earmarked for wholesale redevelopment that would see the demolition of thousands of council homes.  

The government and local councils are attempting to justify this as a way of improving conditions for tenants and increasing the housing supply.  

But Eric Pickles let the cat out of the bag in his introduction to a report by estate agents Saville’s.  

Pickles describes the homes of people living in established communities like Churchill Gardens in Westminster, the Alton estate in Wandsworth and Broadwater Farm in Haringey as “brownfield estates,” a term usually used for contaminated, derelict building sites. 

There’s no hidden agenda here.  

Back in 1987, Tory Housing Minister William Waldegrave pronounced that, after the Right to Buy, “the next great push should be to get rid of the state as a big landlord.”  

Every politician who followed in his footsteps, from both parties, has acted to fulfil this wish.  

Tenant organisations have resisted, sometimes successfully, but as with the NHS and other public services, the damage is done by a thousand cuts. Council housing in Britain is fast approaching the status of its US counterpart, which is precisely where the Tories and neoconservatives want it.  

They want council housing to be the housing of last resort.  For them, housing is about making money.  They ignore the huge public subsidies paid to artificially boost the property market and portray those who can’t or won’t join in as lesser citizens.  

Now they’re using the housing shortage as spurious justification for breaking up and selling off some of the best remaining estates.     

Churchill Gardens is a pioneering council estate of 1,600 homes in Pimlico. It was built by a Tory local authority in the post-war period when council housing was seen as a vital part of a fairer society.  

Replacing bomb-damaged terraced streets, the estate was conceived as part of an integrated plan for comprehensive local services.  

Some of the best architects of the time worked on the design, prioritising light, spacious living space, and a number of the buildings are now listed. 

Churchill Gardens has one of the first “combined heat and power” district energy systems in Britain as well as a community centre, landscaped gardens, schools and local shops.  

This mix of uses is reflected in the social diversity that was fundamental to Aneurin Bevan’s vision for council housing. Such “mixed communities” are the norm at Churchill Gardens and most council estates.  

None of these things matter to Eric Pickles, Saville’s and the rest of the property industry.  

Their prejudices blind them to the qualities of council housing.  

What they see at Churchill Gardens is potential profit.  

The estate is surrounded by the kind of luxury, waterside developments that have dominated and distorted the housing market in London and other cities around the world.  

Across the river, the new Vista development in Battersea is advertising homes with a starting price of £820,000 rising to £2,252,000.  

The thought of another, 30-acre “brownfield” site — Churchill Gardens — is too much for the property parasites to resist. The only problem is, people already live there. 

The coerced displacement of working-class communities is part of the history of cities.  

Those with power have always sought to control who can and can’t live in certain places. Often the price of housing is used to exclude the poor, but more brutal or duplicitous methods are also used.  

While Britain has tended not to see the violent mass evictions that are common in other parts of the world (although we should not forget the treatment of Travellers), thousands of council tenants have been bribed out of their secure tenancies and sometimes their homes in return for repairs and improvements they were already entitled to.  

The combined vested interests of government, councils, housing associations and developers connive to convince tenants that unless they agree to transfer their tenancy and in some cases, move out, their living conditions will deteriorate.  

It’s blackmail.  

The truth is the Tories don’t like council housing, just like they don’t like the NHS.  

If they form the next government, they’ll try to destroy what’s left of both. Producing “mixed communities” has become a hypocritical excuse for building private housing on public land.  

But you won’t hear Pickles calling for council housing to be built in leafy suburbs so they can be more mixed.  Increasing housing supply — which is desperately needed — is a smokescreen for a land-grab.  

The whole labour movement needs to defend Churchill Gardens and the other threatened estates, many of them built when government had less money than it has now.  It’s a shame the Labour Party has committed itself to continuing the austerity programme. 

It should be backing the call for a moratorium on demolitions, giving tenants a genuine choice and planning to build a new generation of council homes.

Statement from Defend Council Housing 

It is outrageous that Communities Minister Eric Pickles describes London council homes as “brownfield estates.” 

This description is in a research brief part-funded by government into the profitability of redevelopment on council estates in London. A brownfield is “a former industrial or commercial site where future use is affected by real or perceived environmental contamination” (Oxford English Dictionary).

Does the “brownfield” slur refer to our secure council tenancies and our really affordable council rents? Many London estates are structurally sound, with green space and thriving mixed communities, needing proper investment not demolition. 

We demand that Eric Pickles apologise for and retract this description of council homes and withdraw funding from this research project. Government must invest in improving existing and building new first-class council housing for rent without strings attached.

To support the statement, please contact Defend Council Housing on 07432 098440 or go to www.defendcouncilhousing.org.uk/dch/