“Artwashing”. “Estate regeneration”. “Gentrification”. Profit.
All words which have been used, accusingly, against other London local authorities, Labour- and Tory-run, and which are increasingly being used to describe aspects of Croydon’s plans.
SIMON ELMER is a leading figure in ASH, Architects for Social Housing. Following this week’s Grenfell Tower disaster, he has received an account which puts forward some troubling theories over the re-cladding of the Kensington tower block where dozens of people lost their lives
This is the view for which hundreds of residents died.
Studio E Architect’s all-white, middle-class vision of the re-clad Grenfell Tower.
Someone has written to ASH anonymously about the possible motivations for the Conservative council’s refurbishment of Grenfell Tower last year:
“Studio E’s design images indicate Grenfell Tower was likely to have been tarted up to raise the Right to Buy value of the property, and possibly to socially cleanse: see the people in the pictures – a vision hardly representative of the current social mix!
“All the London boroughs are doing this because returns on investment are far greater in London property than cash in a bank account, as ASH reminds us regularly. 120 flats x say £250,000 each = £30million return on an £8.6million refurbishment investment.
“In London, Right to Buy is an organised high-yield industry. Even before the qualifying three-year period is up, often coercive agents will ‘encourage’ tenants to apply to buy, with the promise of funding the purchase via a third party. That has happened in most London boroughs, especially where value is high.
“There have been (unsubstantiated) reports of aggressive coercion.
The tenant/agent then sells at open market value and everyone takes a nice cut of the profit. Obviously the opportunities for corruption among housing allocations executives and tenant management authorities is gapingly wide.”
Talking Inside Croydon presents David Matthews talking about his first novel, That They Might Lovely Be on June 28. Apply for tickets for this free event by clicking here
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