The Issue
The council are trying to push through a major re-development of White City Estate. This will require a massive 4-year demolition and reconstruction of the whole of the center of the estate.
All our low-rise disabled-friendly community buildings will be demolished and piled up on top of each other, with a play pitch on the roof, so they can take the extra land. They will dig up all the open spaces, including the play areas and social spaces such as Bridget Joyce Square. They will include some open space in the new development but there will be an overall loss of about 2,000 sq meters. Our open central area will then be filled with 5 and 6 storey buildings increasing the estate population significantly and leaving us with no significant area of the estate that is not built up.
Due to their own LBHF Policies, London-wide Policies, and Legal requirements, they have to make it seem as though the Residents of White City Estate want a major re-development. - BUT WE DID NOT ASK FOR THIS.
Below is an explanation about how they made all their major decisions before speaking to residents and how they manipulated the process to make it look as though Residents made the decisions. Beginning with misleading residents into thinking that LBHF were consulting about a small development but getting approval to develop a plan for something nearly ten times bigger than they originally told us.
If you feel that you want to help put a stop to this land grab then please go to the "What You Can Do” section or respond to their planning application.
Bridget Joyce Square, watch from 24 minsHow Did This Happen?
They began the deception in 2019. A Ward Councillor and council officer attended a meeting of the White City Residents' Association (WCRA) to inform the community that the council had a pot of money for housing development (around £15m) that it wanted to use to build new council housing within White City Estate. We were told it would create 100% council tenancies and could be erectecd on one of a number of small sites within the center of the estate. (There was no mention of taking the whole of the center of the estate and building hundreds of homes, most of which would not be for social housing tenants). They said the council would let Council Residents on the Estate decide exactly where and how extensive the development would be and would not proceed at all if we did not approve of any of the options.
We did not know then that LBHF Council had already held a Cabinet meeting in June 2019 and allocated massive funds to pursue a major re-development of the Estate (Source). They approved a £2.88m capital budget to take the White City Estate development up to the end of RIBA stage 3 (planning permission), despite no discussions yet with the community. Nor did we know that this was part of a wider strategy to begin taking non-residential assets (Community Land and Facilities) to build on. The information about their strategy is contained in a number of documents but a good deal can be found in the papers presented to the LBHF Cabinet meeting in July 2019 (Source). These papers include reference to the Strategic Review of HRA and General Fund land. “In response to these drivers of change, officers have commenced a high-level review of opportunities in the Council’s Housing Revenue Account (HRA) and General Fund land and property holdings to understand the size of the Council’s opportunity. This work has focused on non-residential assets, only considering the potential to renew the Council’s dwelling assets where there has been existing engagement with the community and there is a clear appetite from residents who will be impacted.”
LBHF began a “consultation” which constantly promoted the decisions they had already made. They created some opportunities for Residents to engage in activities that were meaningless when it came to major decisions, but made them feel that they had some input.
The Council's Deception
In July 2021, a Council officer reported to LBHF that they had conducted a consultation, despite the Covid Lock-downs in 2020/21. During this Lock-down consultation, he said that residents had told the council that they did not support a small re-development, but the “majority attending the consultation” supported re-development of the whole of the center of the estate. Given that there were no gatherings allowed for most of this period, it is no surprise that we can find only one meeting attended by residents at which the scale of the re-development was discussed. There were less than 5 social housing Tenants of White City Estate in attendance, they had none of the information required to make a decision, they were not empowered to make any decisions and they say that they did NOT approve of a major re-development. Even if they had, it would clearly be wrong. There was NO Ballot, NO Vote of any description offered to all Estate Residents.
No one in the council meeting (Source) asked for any evidence to prove that this was a decision taken by the residents themselves because it was the answer that they had asked the Officer to deliver. The council has yet to supply any evidence that this was a decision that WE made.
Since then, the council has continued to engage with residents using methods that they have full control of so that they can suppress any negative feedback and only report positive things. Attempts by the Residents' Association members to get the information to assess the council-led consultations and documents to meaningfully consider the proposals have been ignored or obstructed. Even a Freedom of Information request was rejected.
None of us can think of a more deceptive and manipulated process than this, even from the most aggressive of developers.
Please help force the council back to the table to respond to what WE want for White City Estate.