Linda Sanders is the secretary for West Kensington and Gibbs Green Community Homes. They are fighting against the council’s plans to demolish their housing estate, displacing residents, to make way for a new development. So far no family has been moved. The community have put in a right to transfer with the local authority to inform it that they want to be self-governed.
It seems to me there is plan to do away with social housing and ship everyone out of London. My generation have secured tenancy agreements, but what about the next generation?
What do you do?
I work in a school, I’ve just completed a contact as a support teacher and in September I’m going back into the same school as a teaching assistant.
I live in an estate that has been threatened with demolition for seven years. We have been fighting it. I got involved because I have children and I wondered what they were going to do when council housing is gone. It seems to me there is plan to do away with social housing and ship everyone out of London. My generation have secured tenancy agreements, but what about the next generation?
I feel very passionately about helping the older people who don’t know what’s happening because they don’t have social media. They tremble at the thought that they’ve lived through a war but someone’s coming to take their home away. They’re not going to bomb it, but they’re trying to take it away. I have done a lot of work to keep my neighbours in the picture.
What’s next?
A year ago we put in the right to transfer which means that the local authority now knows that we intend to be self-governed.
We produced the papers in a big packet and it’s been presented to the council, who rejected it, so it was passed on to the housing minister and it’s sat there because there seems to always be a reason why we need to wait, such as the mayoral election or the general election.
Anyway that’s good for us, no answer is a good answer! Because it means we’re still where we are. In the seven years we’ve been campaigning they’ve not moved a brick! No family has been moved, only by desire. So we’re still winning. Things beyond our control have started to kick in. Brexit has caused this massive confusion and destabilisation of the economy to the point that investors might not buy in anymore.
The changes that happened in April mean that overseas investors might not be that interested into buying into our development or others in London. These are all things we thought might have an impact and they have, like skittles, they’re all there helping us. If ever we were positive it has to be right now. So 760 homes can stay.
What’s been your proudest moment?
I put together a group of elderly residents to sign a letter that said, “I’m a war child,” or, “I have served in the war, and this is what you are going to do to me.”
We wanted to get a coach of them to deliver the letter to 10 Downing Street but they are too frail. So one elderly neighbour came with me and he war his army uniform and we had some photos of him delivering the letter.
That was my brain child, I thought of it myself. That was a nice moment. It said a lot that it was a letter written by 100 years of experience of the area.
What’s been the hardest thing?
The hardest thing is getting people to join in. Really engaging people is hard, they are raising children, school commitments, meetings, two or three jobs to juggle.
What keeps you going?
Every time I get fed up and I think I can’t do another week of it, I think, “Oh, but I might miss a good bit!” There’s always something in the calendar that I don’t want to miss.
We had a big garden party last weekend and if I’d have dived out a month ago I would have attended but it was fun to be part of it. We launched our People’s Plan which included producing a 3D model of what the estates would looking like with our improvements. It was lovely seeing people’s reactions to what their homes would look like!
Having said that as soon as I leave my front door, I can never account for how long it will take me to get to the shop, because people go, “Oh, Linda, what’s going next, what’s on the calendar, what should I do?” It depends how many people interrupt you on the way.
Why is community important?
I moved into the house 16 years ago with a baby, just like the people who moved in the first place. They were the young families that moved in after the war and had four or five children of their own. Those children are now the adults of my generation who have found it too hard to stay in London and have had to leave, leaving their parents behind. The elderly people are too frail to leave.
One of my neighbours said, “No, I’m not leaving, I’ll leave when I’m in my box.” And he has. His widow said, “Well my old man said he was going to leave in his box, well I’m going to leave in mine then.” I feel for those people and I feel for the youngsters because that’s their home, they don’t know anything else, they went to the local school, my daughter’s just gone to the local college, she’s hoping to start uni in September, which will hopefully be a bus ride away. So she know that house as her home, why would she know anything else? We’ve made it, it’s a social house, but inside you make it your home, you’ve got your memories there.
How can you do that? How can you undo those people’s homes? I don’t know every neighbour but I can pass by any door at any time and say, “Hi,” and we’ll wave. Some people are a bit more nervous, but genuinely I can do that with many neighbours. It’s amazing to think you can have that villagy feel in London. When we take over the estates, we’re looking to gate it off, not to exclude anyone from coming, but to make it feel like it is safe and for us.
How did you vote in the EU referendum and why?
I voted in. As an individual, I felt that it was better to be part of the EU, I like freedom of movement. In my neighbourhood we have more nationalities than you can name, and I like that. I’m actually English so it’s really funny for me when people say, “Go home,” because I am home, where do they expect me to go to?
For all the friends I have in the neighbourhood, I don’t want them to feel the threat of that exclusion. I’ve lived with the threat and it’s not good.
What would you say to someone looking to get involved in community housing schemes?
Yeah do it. Because if you don’t, the way that things are moving, the Government will just push things through. To be honest with you, since I got involved in community work shall we say, my eyes have been opened to so many things. Such as how corrupt things are, how easy it is to buy people off.
There’s a particular perimeter, two terraced homes not far from where we live, that wasn’t on the original master plans of homes. A developer came along and said, “We’ll buy them off,” So systematically they bought them off and if people were a little bit reluctant to go they said, “Well we’ll CPO them anyway.”
How can you do that? People own their homes. They chose to live there, they don’t want to go. Anyway, the terrace houses are still there, but these are the kind of problems people are going to face. Your home is not about how much money it’s cost you necessarily, surely it should be the place that you find peace.
You need to have social housing. A hundred years ago it was created, and now we’re coming round that great big wheel where people are saying they don’t want social housing, because why should people have that luxury? Okay so who’s going to do your cleaning then when you’ve flushed them all outside. Who’s going to be your child’s teaching assistant if you’re not going to let them live in accommodation close enough to where your child’s schools are?
I work in Kensington and Chelsea, in the second richest borough in the UK. It’s an outstanding school, it’s a state school, but of course it performs very very well. Wealthy people send their children there, it’s a very well-to-do catchment area. If I’m not there, or the likes of me, who’s going to be the teacher, never mind the assistant?
So you have to hang onto that community, you have to hang onto as much social housing as you can. Even if you own your own home you have to hang on to it. If I’m not going to say it, it’s like I’ve not got an opinion. Things get through Government anyway. You have to say what’s on your mind, you have to protect it. Hang on in there, make your voice heard.
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