The demolition of the Lesnes Estate has been an ongoing dispute for years now. With a petition signed by more than 1000 people delivered to the Mayor of London, it’s now a critical time for Thamesmead residents affected by Peabody’s controversial stage 2 redevelopment plans.
Text and photos: Harry Allen
Social housing is facing extinction with just under 10,000 social homes a year being built across the country. There was a time when more than 150,000 a year were built, lasting until the late 1970’s.
Nowhere provides a better symbol of this trend than Thamesmead does in southeast London. Once a utopian vision of 1960’s brutalist architecture (New brutalism in England), the town was set to house around 60,000 people, many of those were white-working class families from an overcrowded central London. It has since become more diverse and now embodies a classic multicultural London suburb.
Thamesmead is beset by social problems, but is an area with a tight-knit, and equally proud community. Now, the town is serviced by the south-eastern Elizabeth line at Abbey Wood, with many viewing it as a blessing for transport, and a curse for the gentrification wave sweeping across London.
In 2014, Peabody Housing Association took over 65% of Thamesmeads total housing stock and development plans.
The association was setup in 1862 by American philanthropist, George Peabody, and had a social mission of providing homes to low income Londoners.
Operating as a trust, Peabody paved the way for later government involvement in social housing which consecrated itself in the Housing and Town Planning Act of 1919. This promised government subsidies to help fund the construction of 500,000 houses after World War 1. Currently, the association positions itself as a non-profit, but projections on the regeneration of Thamesmead’s Lesnes Estate stand at a £98 million gain for them.
Now they look to build 2000 brand new homes on the estate after provisional planning approval in October 2022.
Only 370 of those new homes will be for social housing, replacing a total of 600 homes already on the estate where a working-class community has resided for nearly 60-years.
Peabody said that 70% of residents voted for change, but according to local campaigners, that is disingenuous, and dubious phrasing led to a shaky agreement from residents.
After pitching their project to residents with the question: “Are you in favour of Peabody’s proposal to include Lesnes Estate in their regeneration plans for South Thamesmead?” Peabody took that as carte blanche for unhindered demolition approval.
“Every [Lesnes Estate] resident has been offered the opportunity to move into a new home on the new estate,” a spokesperson said, whilst failing to mention the bridging loans of up to £150,000 offered as a shortfall assistance.
The housing association is effectively paying residents well-under the market value of similar sized London homes to replace residents.
According to local campaigners, this will rinse many mortgage holders of their savings or pensions, with the only other choice, being to leave the area they have lived in for decades.
New properties can go for up to £500,000 and replacements are already being lined up: a YouTube video from 2021 sees the Southmere Lake part of the estate shelled out to investors in China.
So, what makes Thamesmead different?
Some are convinced it is just another of London’s social housing cleansing projects that replace the working class residents, no different to the Heygate, or Aylesbury, even Woodberry Down Estate in Hackney.
But Thamesmead, unlike others swept away by gentrification, was born out of a grander vision – a 1960s experiment in new brutalist architecture and urban planning, designed to provide a self-contained utopia for families cleared out of inner city London.
Thamesmead was an entire town in its own right, with schools, shops, and even artificial lakes and canals. Its bold, modernist architecture stood as a symbol of working-class ambition, promising a better life for its residents.
However, its new brutalist structures, once hailed as cutting-edge design, fell into neglect as investment waned, and the utopian dream slowly faded over the decades.
As of 2022, the local foodbank has shut for good and the furniture exchange also recently closed.
While many of London’s housing projects have faced similar challenges, few have done so on the scale of Thamesmead. Spanning 1,000 hectares, its unique location and ambitious original vision set it apart, making it a key case study in the complexities of Greater London’s housing dynamics.
Thamesmead’s transformation touches on multiple issues: persistent transport difficulties despite promises of new infrastructure like a tube line or DLR link, concerns over displacement and gentrification, and debates over the preservation of its iconic new brutalist architecture. These elements contribute to the estate’s significance in London’s housing debates.
Unlike smaller estates such as Aylesbury and Heygate, where the focus was intensely on replacing working-class residents with middle-class buyers, Thamesmead’s regeneration is multidimensional.
It stands as a lasting symbol of how our society approaches social housing and the most vulnerable people, reflecting the tension between development and housing as a human right.
(Next week: Part 2)
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