Brixton Gardens, architectural rendering by Leonie Weber
What is ‘community-led housing’? The phrase is used these days with increasing frequency, but what does it mean? How can it embrace the resource and advice hub set up by the London Mayor to build more affordable housing, and which has just been given £38 million of funds to allocate, and, at the same time, debates held by occupiers of the Old Tidemill Wildlife Garden in Lewisham last year, which has been condemned to demolition and redevelopment by a council and housing association acting with the financial support and planning permission of the same London Mayor? Beyond its rhetoric of government decentralisation and resident empowerment, what does ‘community-led’ mean in practice? Is it a response by London communities to the threat to their homes of estate demolition schemes implemented by councils in which they no longer have any trust? Is it emblematic of…
View original post 4,809 more words
Anarchy in the Sticks! 