layout: page
title: "Affordable housing - broken promises"
image: img/heygategardens.jpg
---
Here we document using a timeline, how original promises to Heygate tenants of 500 new social housing units on the redeveloped estate, were reduced over the years to just 82.

__[July 2000 Guarantees to Heygate TRA](https://35percent.org/img/slrpresentation.pdf)__ - 100% reprovision of the Heygate's (1000) council homes, 50% of which would be built on the estate footprint.

![](https://35percent.org/img/slrpresentation2000.png) 

__[2002 Masterplan](https://www.scribd.com/doc/198503633/EandC-RegenMk1SLRplans) - 500 social rented homes promised on redeveloped Heygate:__  
![](https://crappistmartin.github.io/images/500newhomes.png)


__2003 (Draft SPG [Framework for Development](https://heygatewashome.org/img/Executive_22April2003.pdf)) - 28.5% social rented housing, 1200 units at E&C:__

![](https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Bx9k4VvIQAAesQf.png)


__2006 (Southwark Council [Regeneration Magazine](https://issuu.com/3foxinternational/docs/southwark_3)) - 50% affordable housing at E&C:__

![](https://crappistmartin.github.io/images/southwark_50percentcopy.png)


__2007 (Southwark Council [Regeneration Magazine](https://issuu.com/3foxinternational/docs/southwark_3)) - 40% affordable housing at E&C:__

![](https://crappistmartin.github.io/images/southwark_affordablecopy.png)


__2010 (Southwark Council [Core Strategy](https://www.southwark.gov.uk/downloads/download/2648/documents_for_core_strategy_adoption)) - 35% affordable housing at E&C:__

![](https://crappistmartin.github.io/images/Core_Strategy_82copy.png)


__2011 (Lend Lease [public consultation](https://www.elephantandcastle.org.uk/download,110,illustrative_masterplan.pdf)) - 25% affordable housing on redeveloped Heygate:__

![](https://crappistmartin.github.io/images/Illustrativemasterplan25pccopy.png)


__2012 (Lend Lease [planning application](https://planbuild.southwark.gov.uk/documents/?GetDocument=%7b%7b%7b!WShngyxfax%2fDZG05WBjpyQ%3d%3d!%7d%7d%7d)) - 82 social rented homes on redeveloped Heygate:__  

![](https://crappistmartin.github.io/images/planningapphousingstatementfocus.png)


Lend Lease's [outline planning application](https://planbuild.southwark.gov.uk:8190/online-applications/applicationDetails.do?activeTab=summary&keyVal=_STHWR_DCAPR_9544643) for the Heygate submitted in April 2012, was accompanied by a viability assessment, which argued that it wasn't viable to provide the amount of social rented housing required by policy. After a 3 year Tribunal battle to obtain a copy of the viability assessment, we found that Lendlease had [cooked the books](https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2015/jun/25/london-developers-viability-planning-affordable-social-housing-regeneration-oliver-wainwright) by wildly understated the estimated sales values of its new homes. 

![](https://35percent.org/img/epark92socialrent.jpg)
*Lend Lease's [Updated Affordable Housing Statement](https://35percent.org/img/epupdatedahstrategy.pdf) showing that of the 2,689 homes in its outline application, just 92 will be social rented*

<img src="https://crappistmartin.github.io/images/phaseones106.png" width="300" align="left" style="margin:10px">Combined with the 8 social rented homes that it got away with providing as part of its [separate phase one](https://www.southwark.gov.uk/info/200183/elephant_and_castle/1124/heygate_estate/2) application - [Trafalgar Place](https://trafalgarplace.com)(235 units in total), that's 2,924 new homes on the redeveloped Heygate estate of which 100 will be social rent, 185 'affordable rent' and 316 shared ownership homes. 


These shared ownership homes have already [come under fire](https://www.thelondoneconomic.com/2015/03/17/trafalgar-place-a-damning-indictment-of-affordable-housing-in-london/) for requiring a [minimum salary of £57,500](https://crappistmartin.github.io/images/LQPriceList.pdf); and whilst it has been promised that the 'affordable rent' units will only work out at 50% market rent, this currently equates to around twice the current average council rent in Southwark which is £90 pw for a 1-bed flat. 

1034 Heygate tenants were 'decanted' on the promise that there would be 500 social housing units for those who wished to exercise their 'right to return' to the redeveloped estate. Thanks to a decade of broken promises there will now be just 100 homes to accommodate those who wish to return.

Meanwhile, most of the homes sold to date have been to [overseas buyers](https://35percent.org/img/West_Grove_Colliers_Fact_Sheet.pdf) - 80%, according to an [Evening Standard article](https://www.homesandproperty.co.uk/property-news/renting/living-and-renting-in-elephant-castle-travel-links-parking-schools-best-streets-cost-of-monthly-rent-a130896.html).

![](https://35percent.org/img/80percent.png)

Whose regeneration?






