Sadiq Khan, the Mayor of London, has agreed to provide £53.8million to Croydon Council towards the costs of demolishing the Regina Road estate in South Norwood and building homes to replace the notorious 1960s tower blocks.
Condemned: the Regina Road flats cannot be repaired and will be demolished, thanks to help from London Mayor
Croydon’s Mayor, Jason Perry, made the announcement of the funding deal at last night’s council budget meeting, where he raised Council Tax in the borough to the highest levels in history, while making another £30million of cuts to local services.
In his Town Hall speech, part-time Perry paid tribute to the constructive and helpful approach of Tom Copley, London’s deputy mayor for housing, in securing the grant funding.
Regina Road was thrust into the spotlight in March 2021, when ITV News reports shocked the nation by showing the “dangerous squalor” and slum-like conditions of some of the council flats there, where leaks had been reported months before but which the council’s maintenance contractors had failed to repair.
Independent consultants, in the weeks immediately following the television news coverage, found systemic failures and incompetence in the council’s housing department.
Constructive talks: London’s deputy mayor for housing Tom Copley
The council’s immediate efforts to repair the flats, off South Norwood High Street, were not entirely successful. Attempts to repair and refurbish some of the blighted flats failed to deliver satisfactory improvements in the living conditions endured by council tenants.
A council report published in November 2022 said that the Regina Road “tower blocks are no longer fit for purpose and that the most effective remedy may be to demolish”. A referendum among residents voted 88% in favour of demolition.
The area earmarked for demolition includes three 11-storey tower blocks and a number of low-rise houses. Early proposals are for 191 homes to be demolished and replaced with up to about 380 homes, subject to planning and other approvals, of which at least 200 would be council homes.
The council has already begun the task of moving Regina Road residents to new homes, spending £3.3million to buy 12 flats from Brick by Brick (yes, the company that owes the council close to £100million…) at Trellis Mews (presumably named after the fictional letter-writer in BBC Radio 4’s I’m Sorry I Haven’t A Clue).
The GLA has already been involved in part-funding that property move, providing a £1.2m grant towards the purchase price.
The homes in Trellis Mews – a single block in South Norwood of 10 one-beds and two two-beds – were bought, according to the council, “specifically to help support the wider Regina Road Estate regeneration proposals” because of their location and size.
It said that the homes play a “crucial role” for the council as it delivers the Regina Road scheme, which has experienced “significant decay and some of the homes are unfit for habitation”.
Time to go: the Regina Road estate area, near Norwood Junction, where 190 homes are to be demolished and replaced with nearly 400
“Trellis Mews provides for key new homes that can be used to decant tenants from Regina Road and provide them with much-improved housing.”
Note that councilspeak: “decant”. Like they are dealing with a rather expensive claret, and not people, and families.
“Without acquiring these homes the council could face significant delays in developing Regina Road, which would simply result in more costs via maintenance and management of Regina Road properties,” the council report said.
“It would be better to start the Regina Road development sooner as the costs of managing and maintaining Regina Road Housing Estate would be inefficient.”
The council described the Trellis Mews homes as providing “much-needed social housing in the local area”.
Finding replacement homes for the remaining 120-or-so households living in and around Regina Road may prove more difficult, but the significant grant from Mayor Khan and the GLA should see progress accelerate.
Much of the public money could well subsidise private property companies commissioned for the project. Croydon’s Tory-run council has already hired Arup to undertake a structural survey of the residential blocks at Regina Road, and the other Wates-built council flats elsewhere in the borough. Arup is where Jo “Negreedy” Negrini, the former council chief executive, today draws her salary.
Demolition work at Regina Road is expected to begin in 2025.
Read more: This is council’s chance to do more than just the bare minimum
Read more: Croydon shamed over ‘dangerous squalor’ in council flats
Read more: Investigation finds systemic failure and incompetence in council
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ROTTEN BOROUGH AWARDS: In January 2024, Croydon was named among the country’s rottenest boroughs for a SEVENTH successive year in the annual round-up of civic cock-ups in Private Eye magazine
