I'm a local councillor for Faraday ward, in the London
Borough of Southwark. The majority of my constituents live on one estate: the
Aylesbury. The estate means many things to many people. To the outside world
it’s symbol of decay, and the failure of every government policy you can care
to think of – paternalism, social engineering, Thatcherism, New Labour,
immigration, housing allocation policy, free markets, right to buy, social
housing, brutalism, privatisation…. Everything. In my ward, in my community,
the picture is more complex. It’s an estate that for many of the original residents
brought hope and change, and a community that has endured – as well as the
misery of a heating system that has, quite literally, never worked. There have
been problems with drugs, violent crime and gangs, but there is still a
profound solidarity – a diverse, tolerant and multicultural place.
And this complex picture has left the Aylesbury in limbo
since the 1980s. Several failed regeneration plans have been started and
halted. Money came, and money went. Different ideas were proposed, from
refurbishment to transfer to complete annihilation, with dither and delay
watching the physical fabric deteriorate still further. Even with an emergency
injection of £4million over the last eighteen months, the heating still doesn’t
work.
But now it’s actually coming down. The entire estate, from
LGC blocks built to pre-war design, to the buildings finished in 1977, is coming
down. Not in one go – no ghost town like the Heygate – but over a staged and
managed 20 year period. A period that gives the majority of residents the right
to remain on the footprint of the estate, and within the community to which they are attached, at council
rents for tenants, and numerous deals for leaseholders. The best deals actually
meaning that new homes bought in part by leaseholders will be ‘re-socialised’
when the home-owner moves on.
The replacement mix will be 50% private and 50% affordable –
with over ¾ of the ‘affordable’ being at council rent. This does not represent
a vast reduction in the number of homes at council terms available, due to a
considerable increase in the number of homes on an inefficiently used and
sprawling footprint.
The specifics of the regeneration are out there, and the
excitement for and pride in the regeneration is one of the factors that
resulted in the overwhelming Labour win here last year. There is much to be
commended in it, and much which I and my fellow councillors both locally and in
the cabinet have fought for. For one, the right to remain is at the top of the
priority list.
But all of the above makes it sound like I think we’re
building utopia. I don’t think we are. The entire regeneration is littered with
compromises that I know are uncomfortable. I feel no pride that a housing
association has to be engaged to execute our social housing responsibility. I
feel no pride that the council has no resources – no money from central
government – to execute this new vision on its own. I think the deal on the
level of social housing is a good one, not because there’s enough, but because
that’s the highest level that can be achieved to ensure the project pays its
way. All of this is governed by factors beyond my control, and beyond the
control of the Council.
So how do I level my support for our policy with my
political conscience? How dare I think this and still call myself a socialist? Because
I cannot justify the decrepit housing that exists on so many parts of the
estate. I cannot look constituents in the eye when their floor has collapsed in
their bathroom because of a leak we cannot identify, and say my principles mean
that they’re lumped with it. I can’t watch leaks pour from holes in mouldy
concrete walls into children’s bedrooms. I can’t argue with officers about
asbestos investigations in one flat, knowing that the entire building may well
be riddled with the stuff. I cannot and will not look at scores of people in
community halls huddled around tiny radiators and say ‘Sod an indefinite period
of no heating. Sod your electric bills while you heat your home with an
electric heater. Sod you sleeping in halls with your baby because home isn’t
warm enough. And elderly leaseholders, sold a dream by Thatcher – here’s
another bill for £20,000 to pay a fair share of roofing costs which we know
cannot totally fix those leaks. Nope, my left wing principles condemn you to
leaky, damp and antiquated housing because it’s run by the council, and that’s
always best.’ My principles don’t do that to people.
The estate cannot be refurbished. I'm not an engineer or a
builder or an architect – but even I know that heating systems encased in
concrete cannot be fixed. I cannot fight for something I know to be impossible.
Yet, over the past few weeks, the estate has been
squatted by people who have said all of the above. They have said that the
estate can be refurbished. They have said that it will be exclusively luxury
flats. They have said that people there should sit tight and wait for a perfect
utopian, council-run tomorrow, on a date that they cannot name. Because
liberation comes in the struggle and shocking housing – despite millions of
pounds and decades of heartache and toil – is part of that struggle.
The irony is that I want to talk to them. I want to explain
the above. I know that most of them aren't local, and I know that many have not
followed the ins and outs of every council policy that’s ever affected that
estate. When residents have told me that they’re scum, playing loud music and
keeping children awake, disturbing shift workers and intimidating residents –
I've said that they have their heart in the right place. When I'm told how taxi-loads
of ravers, plums spilling out of their mouths treat this proud community like
an oversized nightclub, I point out that they’re the hangers-on, the
opportunists and not the organisers. When residents tell me to make sure their
banners and graffiti go immediately so they ‘don’t think they've won’ I ask
them to reflect on the message. I know that many of those squatters believe
that they are fighting for the interests of people not just on the Aylesbury,
but across London and the UK.
And I want to talk to the squatters too; to tell them about
my experiences of living here and representing this community. Why we've come
to a good deal on social housing. That we know we’re not building utopia, but
that we’re not pulling utopia down, either. That continuing as we are for an
indefinite period is not just or reasonable – that promising utopia on a date we cannot identify isn't right or fair.
And I've tried to. Firstly in person, and each time they
agreed to organise a meeting, but they never did. Was this because the initial activists
I met were actually living in multi-million pound Georgian properties? Perhaps.
Perhaps they were just part of the solidarity action. Fine. And the protesters
who arrived at my colleague’s surgery to scream at a lone woman, who has lived
in this community for her entire life? I said I would meet, they agreed in a
comradely fashion. Then they walked out and screamed at me. Then there were people
on Thurlow St, handing out fliers, who politely said it sounded great and then
never followed it up. The two lone protesters at Council Assembly? Same.
When they didn't come to me, I went to them. I tweeted the
protesters and offered to meet and exchange views. And what did I get? Demands,
yes/no questions for which there aren't yes/no answers, and accusations that I
was personally responsible for everything from dog patrols to pushing charges
to the result of a ballot that happened when I was twelve. The Councillor who
wants to hear their views (as I have heard the views of actual residents) is
told in no uncertain terms where to shove it.
Even when it comes to the handling of the Council response
to the protest, where I have said that I am happy to hold the Council to
account over issues that they have, I've just received aggression. I can’t
support statements made in 140 characters, life is more complicated than that.
But I come from a tradition and a community that does not place uncompromising
support in the police and those who use physical force. That’s why I want to
meet, hear details of charges pressed and actions taken, and demand answers
from council officers in response to informed concerns. But they won’t do that.
‘Call off the dogs’ is their cry. But I only know the reports that I get from
officers as to the purpose and nature of the patrols. Of course, it sounds
reasonable – and without any more details in a proper exchange, it’s going to
continue to be so. And as long as they’re hurling abuse at and about council
employees, and not just those engaged in directly resisting the occupation, I'm
losing any political capital to show solidarity with them.
Worst of all, there is social cleansing going on in this
city, this borough, and this ward. We need a strong coalition of all voices
from the left to challenge it. I've always known that I’ll likely never say anything
to change the minds of Aylesbury squatters about regeneration, but I can
give plenty of examples of private landlords where we can all agree that action
needs to be taken, and communities that really need them to stand with them.
Will that be convenient for me personally to be allied with this peculiar band?
No. But it’s the thing my conscience tells me to do, because I think that their
principled voice has a place for residents.
But none of this is sexy enough, and none of it fits the
narrative that there’s a nasty neo-liberal council out there, which speaks with
one voice and is just doing the same thing as every other failed public body. It’s
boringly managerial to try to influence real change, even though I don't see the conflict with doing that today as well as radical statements about
tomorrow. As comments from those supportive of the occupation have shown (and,
as I want to be kind, lots of the confused propaganda) many people showing
solidarity haven’t a clue about what the policy on the Aylesbury actually is.
No matter how inconvenient it is for me personally, publicly
or politically I try to follow my conscience. That’s why I’ll try to understand
both sides of the occupation. That’s why I’ll hold the Council to account when
I have the information. That’s why I don’t want unreasonable force being used
on my doorstep against whoever, by whoever. That’s why the offer stands to talk
about the regeneration. That’s why I’ll listen to residents first.
That’s why I support the Aylesbury regeneration.
But I'm not
replying to any more tweets. My conscience doesn't allow me to let protesters, who are comrades of
mine, look any more unreasonable.
