This is a briefing paper presented at the Free word – Tactics of Defence event on 24th October 2019, which was co-ordinated by Eddie Daffarn from Grenfell United and the rapper Lowkey.
Tactics of defence in housing campaigns
Council housing is ‘secure, decent, affordable and democratically accountable’. So when we face schemes for stock transfer (homes being sold to housing associations for a derisory amount), arms’ length management companies, rent and service charge rises, and demolitions, our aim is to campaign as widely as possible by explaining the negatives to these policies, and explaining and exposing what the real agenda is.
This means getting organised, communicating with tenants and residents, lobbying Cllrs and MPs, and getting media coverage for our concerns. It also means doing research to undermine their arguments.
Ballots
Where there is a ballot, we need to put forward the decisive arguments that can win the ballot. In the case of stock transfer, that meant labelling it as privatisation with slogans like ‘hands off our homes’. When I was active in Wycombe we found the alternative sources for direct investment in our homes, in the form of £30 million reserved right to buy receipts, as the alternative to what the council wanted to do. We demonstrated that local housing association rents were higher, and by how much.
We have to have a wide range of factual argument to counter the amount of money that can be thrown at ballots by the other side, painting a marvellous picture and of course selling hope. So we need hope as well – that the Council will join with us to convince government to invest in our homes and communities.
We can talk about what an inclusive society would be like – and contrast that with whatever is being proposed.
Winning a ballot is a tremendous feeling. It is one way to stop the social cleansing machine in its tracks. The downside is, there is no guaranteed way to win.
Facing the Haringey Development Vehicle, we branded it as social cleansing. This was a matter of listening to the tenants, because at our first meeting, people came along and said ‘we have seen what has happened to Brixton and Hackney, we know this is social cleansing’, so that became our slogan.
Never let us say that gentrification plans are ‘regeneration’, when it is only regeneration for the developers’ profits. I do not think we should talk about real regeneration or better forms of regeneration. That word is contaminated, and let us keep it so.
The campaign was kept open politically. In London, there is a marked tendency for housing campaigners to be extremely bitter against the Labour Party and sometimes against all Councillors. This is not helpful when we are trying to lobby them about policy. By briefing all Councillors with our issues, a dialogue was kept open, and this paid dividends over the HDV, when without warning a group inside the Labour Party opened up a campaign starting with a Twitter barrage that used all our arguments.
Research
At every stage of a major project like the HDV, council reports contain things we can use against them, and there are references to background reports that we can get under Freedom of Information (FOI), or there are gaps in the data or the argument that we can use FOI to find out about.
The HDV provided huge scope for research, with the 1,400 pages of Haringey Cabinet documents written by Lendlease and giving an insight into their vales and methods. I wrote a separate document about what kinds of things we found out, which I am bringing along today (See What we learned from the HDV).
The shifting agenda and new issues
Higher house prices
The HDV and other schemes like it stepped up the attacks on us, moving from estate redevelopment to transforming large parts of the borough by building unaffordable housing and pursuing demographic change. This then opens up new issues (which the council and developers do not want to talk about). So constantly emphasising the higher house prices, higher market rents and higher retail prices that are going to drive local people out. Asking for Equality impact assessments and challenging them when they are of poor quality. Because social cleansing means a new ethnic mix as well.
The planning system
This opened up the whole area of the planning system which allows us to interrogate in detail proposals coming forward, there is so much to learn, and developers and their consultants and often very explicit about what they are seeking to do and how (e.g., Meridian Water Phase 2). Our job is to make sure everybody knows about it.
Equalities and Resident savings and debts
One of Haringey’s reports included a single paragraph reference to the low savings and capital of the borough’s residents (48% have no savings or are in debt). This led to an FOI battle to retrieve the borough’s Housing Needs Survey, asking for the savings and capital data broken down by ethnicity. The Council argued that no report existed, but they released the data in raw form. The data, although of a quality equivalent to a not at all good secondary school statistics project, still showed the disadvantage to non-white groups from reliance on housing types requiring deposits and advance payments. This data was then fed back on planning applications and as a briefing to all Councillors.
The result was that Haringey revised its Housing Strategy so as not to support shared ownership (which requires deposits) as a preferred tenure for intermediate housing.
Only two borough leaderships in London specifically told residents to earn more money if they wanted to buy or rent the new homes being built: Haringey under Cllr Claire Kober, and Newham under its executive Mayor Sir Robin Wales, who told Focus E15 campaigners, ‘if you can’t afford to live in Newham, you can’t afford to live in Newham’. Both of these leaderships were deselected by Labour Party members, and driven out of office in 2018.
Mayors’ rent (London Affordable Rent or LAR)
The emergence of Mayors’ rent, with a briefing operation around it (saying that it’s based on Social Rent, it’s close to Social Rent, and it’s soon to converge with Social Rent) meant the need to catch up on the argument and the data.
With a table of rent figures to prove that the developers GLA and Officers were not telling the truth, because LAR is £60 pw higher than current council rents in London for two bed properties, we were ready to comment on every planning application that used Mayor’s rent, lodge official complaints about the misinformation in Planning Reports and other official documents about it, brief local election candidates, and then brief the Cllrs who were elected afterwards.
The result was that Haringey revised its Housing Strategy to support Social Rent only, and not to support LAR for social/affordable rented housing; and this policy is not just for council housing, but for all affordable providers, such as housing associations.
Sadly however this is an argument going begging at the GLA, and it is the GLA that is promoting higher rents for social rent tenants so assiduously.
Child yields and child free development
The developers’ push for smaller and smaller homes has raised the issue of very low and unrealistic Child yields (and therefore developers not needing to provide play spaces), and the wider issue of child free development. We tackled the issue of defective child yield data at Haringey and with the GLA. The GLA are especially bad on this one, seemingly captured by developer interests which seek the ‘freedom’ not to build any family sized market dwellings at all. This prompted some interesting research on whether or not owner occupiers have children (they do in fact have children, and as often as anyone else does). The Examinations in Public of the London and borough plans are very good for this kind of work, and brought us in touch with a group who had been campaigning over child play spaces for years.
Tenure segregation
This is another huge issue, it is happening everywhere and can be exposed and opposed through planning documents and the planning process. It is notable that both Sadiq Khan and the Tory government jumped to denounce segregation. There is loads more to do here.
Paul Burnham 24 10 2019
Haringey Defend Council Housing 