Green jungles

Open Garden Estates is an initiative by Architects for Social Housing (ASH), a collective working to save London council estates under threat of demolition from government housing policy, the mayor’s building programme, local authority estate regeneration schemes and property developers.

“Open Garden Estates is an opportunity to dispel the myth of estates as concrete jungles.”

Last year, Open Garden Estates was hosted by three council estates: Cressingham Gardens, designed by Ted Hollamby; Central Hill, by Rosemary Stjernstedt; and Knight’s Walk, by George Finch. All three estates are under threat of demolition by Lambeth Labour Council.

This year, over the weekend of 18-19 June, ASH is exporting Open Garden Estates across London, and a dozen estates have signed up, including Macintosh Court, Silchester and Lancaster West, Somerstown, Old Tidemill Gardens and Crossfields, Alton East and West, Ravensbury Grove, Warwick Road, Granville and Edmundsbury estates.

Open Garden Estates is an opportunity for the public to visit their green areas, communal spaces and private gardens, and dispel the myth of estates as “concrete jungles”, home to “troubled families”, “anti-social behaviour” and “criminals”. It is in these terms that the prime minister David Cameron has justified his plan to blitz 100 so-called ‘sink estates’ across England and replace them with Starter Homes that are unaffordable for people on low incomes across 98% of the country. And where the Conservative government has led, London’s predominantly Labour councils have followed. Under the guise of regeneration, local authorities find it easier to demolish the estates they wish to redevelop as luxury apartments when – as at the Heygate and Aylesbury estates, to name only the two most notorious examples – they start by denigrating the communities that live in the homes they plan to demolish.

Open Garden Estates is a much-needed corrective to this widely held but deeply inaccurate characterisation of council housing. Walking tours of participating estates will show how well they have been designed, and allow visitors to meet the strong and socially mixed communities they are home to. The public will have trouble matching the concrete wastelands of popular perception with the green and leafy surroundings of Central Hill, Cressingham Gardens or Ravensbury Grove. Nor will they find the drug-taking benefit scroungers of Westminster’s feverish imagination in the vibrant communities of Silchester, Somerstown and Edmundsbury. Above all, Open Garden Estates is a chance for residents, local communities and supporters to meet and organise their campaigns to save these estates from becoming another victim of London’s housing crisis.

Open Garden Estates is a collective event hosted by the participating estates, whose communities interpret how to stage the day. In addition to the tours, activities this year include talks by residents, architects and campaigners; barbeque picnics and guerilla gardening; film screenings about estate regeneration; a range of performances, including a puppet show, street orchestra and art workshops; exhibitions of paintings and photographs celebrating estate communities, as well as the architectural designs by ASH to save Central Hill estate.

Please visit one of the communities hosting Open Garden Estates this weekend. Get an insider’s view of council estates, meet the people that live there, and find out how you can help to save their homes. The more of us get involved the stronger the message we send: social housing not social cleansing!

Geraldine Dening and Simon Elmer, Architects for Social Housing