Southwark Council has now spent £350 million on the regeneration of Walworth’s Aylesbury Estate since Notting Hill Genesis was appointed to carry out the project in 2015.
But with less than 800 homes built by NHG so far out of 3,575 with planning permission, and amid continued delays to demolition of several empty blocks, questions have been asked around whether the council was right to opt for demolition over refurbishment, which in 2005 it was estimated would also cost £350 million.
In September we covered concerns by residents about alarming tactics deployed by squatters, who were said to have taken to shoving bits of paper into door frames and waiting to see if after three days they had been removed.
We then reported on a renewed squatting operation launched by the council in partnership with the police, homelessness charities, gang crime experts and drug specialists.
In May, a team of more than 80 people were deployed to check and seal 600 empty flats across the estate, while 24/7 security guards were despatched to monitor the hoarded blocks.
Successive stings carried out over the last six months have also resulted in three arrests, at least two of which were related to drug possession in May and September.
Then in October we covered the warnings of Ketzia Harper, a Faraday ward councillor and resident of the estate, who said squatting and criminal activity had spiralled out of control over the last two years, but that her attempts to sound the alarm had failed to yield results.
“In the last two years I have encountered, in the less populated parts of the estate, metal doors ripped from their door frames whilst shattered glass, human excrement and used needles litter the floors,” she told this paper.
“This is not something I have seen before and is a direct result of the increased number of empty flats, left uninhabited sometimes for years, caused by delays to the regeneration.”
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Harper questioned how much the council had spent on securing the estate and whether any of the cost had been borne by NHG, and suggested it should revisit terminating the development partnership, which was briefly investigated a few years ago but scrapped amid a downturn in economic conditions triggered by Liz Truss’s disastrous mini budget in October 2022.
We decided to put those exact questions to the council in an FOI, including how much had been spent on the redevelopment in total since NHG took the reins.
The FOI response revealed that £346,546,486 has been spent on the regeneration since 2015, including £643,711.59 on security.
That is the exact amount the local authority predicted it would cost to refurbish the estate 20 years ago, seen at that time as too expensive to justify, whereas renewal was said to be “broadly cost neutral” because the money generated by the private sale homes would offset the costs of the regeneration.
The Aylesbury Estate – famously visited by then new Prime Minister Tony Blair in 1997 when he spoke of ‘forgotten people’ – is one of Europe’s biggest estate renewal projects.
Of all the homes built by NHG so far, 85 per cent are classed as affordable, with 3,575 homes due to be completed by 2036 of which 50 per cent will be affordable. There are also brand-new community facilities like the Una Marson Library, Harold Moody Health Centre and a new home for the Mentivity community centre.
The council has stressed that it is not fair to compare the costs of the scheme today with 2005 estimates, given that £350 million in 2005 works out at around £625 million in today’s money when adjusted for inflation.
And NHG said they are “awaiting the completion of the final stages of the planning process before we have all the legal permissions to move to the next phase of development”, which had been beyond their control.
There are more questions which we still are waiting to hear back from Southwark Council about. How much do they reckon the whole scheme will have cost once it is finished, and when do they realistically expect this will be? The original deadline was 2036 – will they really be able to build almost 3,000 new homes in the next 10 years?
Both the council and the developer have repeatedly affirmed their commitment to the regeneration, but the sums accrued so far raise profound questions over when, and at what financial cost, the development will be finished.
These kind of estates need ‘porters’ who act as janitors as well and also police who goes in and out of the building. it is the only way to keep them livable – people should not be able to squat so easily with no one even realizing what is going on. Those who have a right to live there will feel unsafe.