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Could ballots end up spoiling much-needed regeneration projects?

Plans to force a vote of residents before major housing regeneration schemes can go ahead may favour those who shout loudest, warns Sir Steve Bullock

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Plans to force a vote of residents before major housing regeneration schemes can go ahead may favour those who shout loudest, warns Sir Steve Bullock. #ukhousing

In February this year, against a background of growing controversy around large regeneration projects, Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn appeared with London mayor Sadiq Khan as the mayor announced plans for mandatory ballots of residents ahead of major housing regeneration schemes as a strict condition of funding. Corbyn made it clear that he wanted to see this approach rolled out across the country.

“Corbyn made it clear that he wanted to see this approach rolled out across the country.”

This prompted fears that regeneration schemes could be delayed or stalled completely at a time when the need for ever greater numbers of new homes was already a major political issue. The consultation document on the ballot proposal made clear that this risk was recognised.


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It said: “The mayor is aware that, in isolation, a policy requiring positive ballots means some estate regeneration schemes may not go ahead. This could mean the benefits of such schemes, including new and affordable housing and other community benefits, would not be realised. However, it is envisaged that ballots will form part of landlords’ programmes to engage intensively with residents to develop plans for estate regeneration schemes.”

In a time when the outcome of a ballot on whether we should stay in the EU has almost brought the British government to a halt, it is easy to imagine that the outcome of any ballot will favour those who shout the loudest and not those who espouse the most rational course of action.

“The outcome of a ballot on whether we should stay in the EU has almost brought the British government to a halt, it is easy to imagine that the outcome of any ballot will favour those who shout the loudest.”

Councils rely on ballots for their essential democratic legitimacy and have often needed to ballot on housing issues. Large-scale voluntary transfers of local authority stock to housing associations needed ballots and there were many examples of tenants being persuaded to back the potential benefits of transfer, despite often fierce opposition and occasional disinformation.

However, one ballot in Lewisham has come to mind again and again as discussion of this issue has continued. The Excalibur Estate consisted of 187 temporary prefabricated houses built using labour from German and Italian prisoners of war during the chronic London housing shortage after WW2.

They were meant to last 15 years but were still occupied after 60 years. The advent of the Decent Homes programme brought into focus the near impossibility of bringing these up to standard at anything like a manageable cost, and along with L&Q we began to consider what could be done. It proved difficult to have a positive dialogue with those who claimed to speak for the tenants of the estate yet, when we met individual tenants they told us about the miserable conditions they had to endure.

After one final attempt to have a genuine dialogue failed, I decided that the only way to break the impasse was to ask the tenants directly. The ballot was fiercely contested and the staff involved worked hard to make sure that objective information was presented. The fact that this was the last prefabricated estate led to many people from beyond the area intervening and almost without exception demanding that the estate be saved.

“The people who actually had to live there took a different view and voted 56% to 44% for demolition.”

The people who actually had to live there took a different view and voted 56% to 44% for demolition. As one yes voter explained: “We can’t live here any longer. They are falling down. They were good in their day but I get ice on the inside of my bedroom window during the winter.”

The regeneration of the estate by L&Q is now nearly complete and those tenants who wished to have been able to move, moved into new homes on the rebuilt estate while almost as many extra homes have been created. Ballots need not be negative if we build good relationships with tenants and make sure they are able to access the real information they need to decide, as well as being convinced they will be treated fairly.

Sir Steve Bullock, former mayor of Lewisham

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