Guinness Trust Occupation Ongoing

 

Major victories at the Guinness Trust estate in Brixton, where 44 families faced eviction to make way for flats to be sold privately – the campaign has not only stopped the first eviction, but has won the right for all affected families to apply for rehousing in London. However, there’s still no guarantee that they will be rehoused – and they still face eviction in April if nothing is resolved – so now the attention turns to Boris Johnson to provide the money to rehouse all the families in the estate they have all lived in for 8 – 10 years.

  Video here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KKg-wdgNBwc

Block the Budget with the Grenfell Action Group and the Radical Housing Network on Monday 23rd Feb.

WAR BREAKS OUT OVER LONDON HOUSING POLICIES

Not surprisingly war appears to have broken out in London between the increasingly strong and organised anti-regeneration movement, led by diverse local housing activist groups, and our very own version of the despised STASI of East German history, the Metropolitan Police.

This will be no great surprise to the poor, disadvantaged, and disenfranchised, of RBKC and other London boroughs, who traditionally inhabit our increasingly run down and threatened social housing estates.

LANCASTER WEST IS NOT IMMUNE TO THIS THREAT, AND THERE IS STRONG EVIDENCE NOW EMERGING FROM HORNTON STREET OF THE SO-CALLED ‘REGENERATION’ PLANS SOON TO BE UNLEASHED BY THE DESPISED CABINET MEMBER FOR HOUSING, PROPERTY AND ‘REGENERATION’, ROCK FEILDING-MELLEN, WHO WAS CLEARLY APPOINTED BY COUNCIL LEADER NICK PAGET-BROWN FOR THIS VERY PURPOSE. THEY EVEN CHANGED HIS JOB TITLE TO INCLUDE THE WORD ‘REGENERATION’ FOR THIS VERY PURPOSE. THAT’S ABOUT ALL WE NEED TO KNOW ABOUT THE CURRENT TORY MINDSET!

(funny how these arrogant brats so often have hyphenated names….wonder why?)

We urge our readers to follow the links below and witness what’s now confronting protesters across London. Make no mistake they’ll soon be coming for us too. We MUST prepare to mount our own resistance before it is too late.

http://rt.com/uk/233443-social-cleansing-protest-southwark/

https://twitter.com/SouthwarkNotes/status/567946938412363777

http://www.brixtonbuzz.com/2015/02/guinness-trust-housing-activists-plan-anti-eviction-action-for-thurs-19-feb/

https://fightfortheaylesbury.wordpress.com/2015/02/18/httpswordpress-compost84161430newoccupation-going-strong-in-new-building-after-100-riot-cops-try-to-evict-us/

STOP PRESS:

http://www.demotix.com/news/6924874/occupation-resistance-against-bailifs-aylesbury-estate#media-6924866

ANOTHER FINE MESS…

Ever since the proposal for the main entrance of the Kensington Aldridge Academy to be located on the junction of Silchester Road and Lancaster Road, the Grenfell Action Group and local people have been warning the RBKC Council that it is only a matter of time before a school child becomes involved in a serious or fatal road accident.

It is well known among our community that many car drivers pay no respect to supposed speed limits in this area and see the stretch of Lancaster Road, leading away from Ladbroke Grove, as an ideal chance to put their foot down and gather some speed. It has been witnessed that cars are often seen careering around the corner at the junction of Silchester and Lancaster Road and that this has been a site of road traffic accidents in the past.

Residents from Lancaster West came together during the consultation for the KALC project and informed RBKC about our concerns and our local Labour Councillors even included a reference to these concerns in their official response to the the KALC Planning Application way back in 2012:

9.0 The Transport Assessment

The Junction of Lancaster Road and Silchester Road:

9.1 Children will approach the Academy from the east at a very dangerous blind bend where Lancaster Road meets Silchester Road – the site of several road fatalities in the past and regular traffic “incidents”. These notwithstanding, it seems that there will be no bollards along this pavement.

The road safety and traffic mitigation measures at the junction of Lancaster Road and Silchester Road must be revised and improved.

Despite the urging of our Notting Barns Councillors and the concerns voiced by the local community it appears that Laura Johnson (RBKC Head of KALC) and her cabal at the Council have done very little indeed to address the issues that we have raised and, by failing to act, we believe that they are neglecting their duty to properly ensure the safety and well-being of the young children attending the Aldridge Academy as they enter and exit the school campus.

Despite repeated warnings, no effort has been made by RBKC to introduce speed ramps, to install a properly located pedestrian traffic crossing or traffic lights, to protect the pavement with bollards or to even adequately sign-post that a school building is approaching. This lack of action is dangerous and negligent of RBKC and needs to be responded to as a matter of urgency.

We restate to RBKC the promise that the Grenfell Action Group made to the Council a few years ago that we will march to Hornton Street when the first child is injured in a road accident and we insist that any blood spilt will be entirely the responsibility of the Council.

 

 

 

 

 THEY CAN’T SAY THEY HAVENT BEEN WARNED!

Direct Action – We Salute The Guinness Trust Occupation In Brixton.

The Grenfell Action Group salutes the housing activists who are currently staging a brave occupation of a boarded up Council flat in the Guinness Trust buildings on the Loughborough Park Estate in Brixton in protest at the heartless and cruel eviction of existing tenants.

Please read about their struggle here and help attend an eviction resistance on the Estate this coming Thursday 19th Feb @ 9.30am:

 https://guinnessoccupation.wordpress.com/

 In the meantime, the editors of the Grenfell Action Group blog would like to assure our readers that we have not totally forgotten our commitment to highlighting and commenting on the everyday shenanigans on Lancaster West Estate, perpetrated against our community by the TMO and the RBKC Council. We can assure you that we will be returning to some of our more familiar themes in due course.

However, over the last few weeks our blog has included stories of housing struggles like the example above and elsewhere in the capital.  We make no apology for this. In fact, we believe that there are two important lessons to be learned from the insurgence of housing activism exemplified by affiliations such as The Radical Housing Network, Focus E15, Earl’s Court Area Action Group and Our West Hendon and why it is important for us to highlight them on our blog and publicise their methods.

First and foremost, the existence of these groups and their commitment to direct action proves that the housing crisis can be robustly responded to and that communities facing the threat of “regeneration” (ie social cleansing) are no longer alone and defenceless.

Secondly, we believe that right here under our noses in Kensington and Chelsea, the Cabinet Member for Housing, Property and Regeneration, Councillor Feilding Mellen, is set to unleash a ruthless scorched earth policy to eradicate social housing in the North of this most Rotten Borough and that RBKC council tenants and leaseholders have much to be fearful about.

We believe that Councillor Feilding Mellen is about to begin using the £283 million of Council Capital reserves (amassed by years of Tory underfunding of vital services to vulnerable adults and children) to bankroll the destruction of Lancaster West and other North Kensington housing estates with a view to destroying our communities and replacing them with soul-less multi-million pound flats and penthouses for sale to foreign investors.

We believe that Councillor Feilding Mellen and his perverted neo-con pals in Hornton Street are preparing to simply give away the land on which our treasured estates are currently situated to their greedy property developer friends and also supply them with the money so they can build houses for the super rich and the exploitation of the “buy to leave” market.

When these fascist and heartless policies come to be implemented the residents of Lancaster West and similar estates would do well to look at the examples of occupation at the Aylesbury Estate,

fightfortheaylesbury.wordpress.com

and most recently at the Guinness Trust building on the Loughborough Park Estate in Brixton. There is currently an online petition to support the Guiness Trust tenants. You could help by signing this;

https://www.change.org/p/simon-dow-stop-the-social-cleansing-of-brixton-stop-the-evictions-of-tenants-from-loughborough-park-estate

We urge our readers to support these occupations in any way they can and also to support the current week of housing action called by the Radical Housing Network:

 http://radicalhousingnetwork.org/

Closer to home, we recognize that when Councillor Feilding Mellen comes after our homes we will need to be in a position to offer organised resistance. We would do well to recognise NOW that Focus E15, the Guinness Trust in Brixton, Our West Hendon and others in the Radical Housing Network, can offer help and solidarity and are already showing us the way forward. We should help them now. Solidarity!

Housing Activists Disrupt Bailiffs Awards Ceremony

Focus E15 ‘Evict the Bailiffs’ at the British Credit Awards

On 11th February housing activists and families who have experienced bailiff evictions gathered to publicly embarass and shame those attending an extravagant awards banquet celebrating companies that prey on poverty and the housing crisis. On that evening the Brewery in Moorgate, Central London, hosted the British Credit Awards , a £4,000-per-table black-tie awards show for bailiffs and debt collectors, and the Focus E15 housing campaign was there to turn the front entrance of the venue into a mock eviction site. Many of those arriving to attend as ‘guests’ or award nominees were confronted by a wall of demonstrators and had to ‘run a gauntlet’ to enter the venue. Some had paint and other detritus thrown at them, and two demonstrators were arrested by the Stasi (ie police).

While the event was meant to recognise the wider credit industry, awards on the evening included: ‘Enforcement Team of the Year,’ ‘Third Party Debt Collection Team of the Year’ and ‘Consumer Collections Team of the Year.’

In November, UK eviction rates rose to their highest recorded levels, and homeless charity Shelter announced that 1,300 people are being put at risk of eviction every day, due primarily to government welfare reforms and out-of-control housing prices.

Many of the companies accepting British Credit Awards this year prey on the poverty and vulnerability created by the housing and economic crises, and the wider austerity agenda. For these companies, such as Croydon-based bailiffs, The Sheriff’s Office, the suffering of others is a boon for business.

Below: A paint spattered ‘guest’ at the odious shindig in question

Families who have experienced evictions at the hands of the nominated companies, were invited by Focus E15 to come out and share their stories with those entering the venue.

Nazrah Ismail and her family were evicted when The Sheriff’s Office bailiffs broke into their flat at 6:30 am the week before Christmas. The former Newham and Lambeth school teacher said:

“I was violently and unexpectedly evicted with my three kids and disabled husband by officers from The Sheriff’s Office. We were not informed in advance before they appeared at dawn ordering us to get out. We were left on the street homeless and frightened by this traumatic experience. It is infuriating that this company have been nominated for an award. I am concerned and outraged that they will continue to put other families through the kinds of grief we have experienced.”

Samantha Middleton, one of the original mums that founded the Focus E15 campaign said:

“We’ve helped stop lots of bailiff evictions around Newham and have seen from those who’ve been through them how awful they are. It’s appalling that these companies are getting awards at all, and attending events at a price-per-table that could keep a family housed for many months. These companies are the hired soldiers of social cleansing.”

Contact: focusE15London@gmail.com

[1] http://focuse15.org/2015/02/12/etb-wrap/                                                                            [2] www.icmbritishcreditawards.com/
[3] https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/mortgage-and-landlord-possession-statistics-july-to-september-2014
[4] http://www.theguardian.com/society/2014/dec/03/evictions-welfare-reforms-property-prices-tenants