Bexley residents opposing plans to demolish their homes have been given notice to end their occupation of empty homes in the area in order to object to a scheme to deliver nearly 2,000 new units on the site.
Protestors have been occupying homes on the Lesnes Estate in Thamesmead for five months in the hopes of blocking plans for Peabody to build 1,950 new homes.
The trust was granted outline planning permission by Bexley Council in October 2022 to knock down homes in the Lesnes Estate ahead of its redevelopment scheme for the area.
Maria Ivanova, 72, has lived on the Lesnes Estate with her son since purchasing her home there in 2007.
The homeowner said she has experienced many ‘sleepless nights’ after paying off her mortgage earlier this year. She claimed she has been offered £260,000 by the trust for her four-bedroom house and garden, alongside £10,000 to assist moving costs.
Ms Ivanova told the Local Democracy Reporting Service (LDRS): “It’s stressful. I’m not getting younger although I’m trying to take care of my health.”
She added: “I don’t know what I will do when they decide to demolish the house. At this time, my family from Bulgaria visits me every summer. For the last two years they said this area has never been so dirty. It’s full of waste on the streets. It’s like nobody lives here… This rubbish stays there. There are flies and there is a smell when you pass it.”
The homeowner claimed she felt the slow decline of the estate had been done intentionally by Peabody. Pictures seen by the LDRS show multiple cars on the estate with broken windows as well as a variety of fly-tipped household items including mattresses, bathtubs, chests of drawers and armchairs left in both communal areas and gardens of derelict homes.
Andrea Gilbert, 36, is a housing activist who has occupied homes on the estate alongside residents since April 6.
A letter seen by the LDRS from August 22 sent on behalf of Peabody claimed that the occupiers of the properties had no right to remain in the homes and that they were to vacate the spaces immediately.
Photo by Joe Coughlan.
She told the LDRS: “There has been nothing apart from Peabody sending the notices… This is the only engagement that we’ve had with them and all the residents have asked is for a conversation with John Lewis [executive director of Peabody].”
Ms Gilbert said the occupiers have started a petition for Mr Lewis to consider refurbishing homes on the Lesnes Estate instead of demolishing them.
The campaign has received over 1,000 signatures and she said the group had plans to hand a copy of the petition to the Mayor of London on September 7 for him to consider blocking Peabody’s planning permission to build on the site.
A Mayor of London spokesperson told the LDRS: “The Mayor is committed to ensuring all regeneration schemes in the capital are in the best interests of local residents and will consider all comments made in favour and against the regeneration of the Lesnes Estate when making his Stage 2 decision.”
Ms Gilbert said Peabody staff only started clearing fly-tipped items from homes on the estate in the past week after being ‘shamed’ into doing so by residents. She added that many homeowners were unaware that the trust planned to demolish the Lesnes Estate when voting to include it in plans to redevelop the area. A Peabody document from 2020 sent to residents on the estate, seen by the LDRS, shows no explicit wording to confirm homes in the area would be demolished as part of the proposals.
The activist said: “There’s just no discussion on it whatsoever, which is unfair to the residents because they were misled into voting for regeneration when demolition was never mentioned… At the end of the day, this was done under disingenuous circumstances and it’s not fair that these people are potentially losing their homes.”
Tonderai Motobei, 57, has lived in his home just off the estate since 2006. He said the conduct of Peabody has been ‘militant’ and he feels the trust has treated the regeneration of the estate as a ‘cash cow’ to raise funds. He said he would like to see homeowners such as Ms Ivanova being offered more for their properties, and that refurbishing the homes on the estate would be a more viable option.
He told the LDRS: “I think it would be OK if they gave the people who owned their properties here an equitable amount so that they could still live in the area.. It’s not in the national interest, it’s in Peabody’s interest. So therefore I think Peabody should give the owners the correct amount.”
He added: “I never knew this part here was going to be demolished and I never heard this officially. I just heard it through the residents speaking. So Peabody said they had a full consultation with people in the area. If they did, then how come I never heard about it?”
A Peabody spokesperson told the LDRS: “We know that moving home can be a challenging time, and there’s a lot to adjust to. We’ve always been happy to talk to the residents about their concerns and are here to support them through the process.”
The spokesperson said that the majority of residents on the Lesnes Estate voted in favour of the regeneration, which they claimed would bring about hundreds of high quality, much-needed homes in the borough. They said work had been done to ensure all resident homeowners can move to a new home in the local area without needing to take on an additional mortgage.
They added: “Residents’ current homes are independently valued, and we offer them a further 10 per cent on top of that. People in social rented homes will continue to pay social rent.
“We have extra teams clearing the fly-tipping on the estate every day, and they’ll be there until it’s cleared. We’ll also be issuing fixed penalty notices to anyone found to be illegally dumping rubbish.”
