Shortly after handing in a petition from residents of the Lesnes Estate for the Mayor to ‘call-in’ the proposed development, Zoë Garbett AM questioned the Mayor over his failure to acknowledge how much he has ignored the reality of Londoners suffering through the city’s ongoing estate regeneration.
Quoting lived experience of those residents from the Thamesmead estate, Zoë pointed to the real-life impacts of estate regeneration on individuals and communities across the city, drawing on their awful living conditions, uncertainty, and displacement.
Following the exchange, Green Party London Assembly Member Zoë Garbett said:
“Estate regeneration is displacing Londoners, ripping communities apart with no accountability for the developers and landlords tasked with improving housing across our city. Refurbishment should always be the default option.
“Estate regeneration can drag on for years, decades even. There are very few safeguards to make sure this doesn’t happen. It's a lottery – and the Mayor needs to listen to residents to prevent more councils, housing associations and developers embarking on more disastrous regeneration schemes.
“My biggest thanks to the residents of the Lesnes Estate for showing me around their community, and for forcing this issue onto the Mayor’s desk before the crisis gets any further out of hand."
In response to the concerns raised, the Mayor said: “I’ll undertake today to get my Deputy for Housing to look into this issue, but also to work with you, Zoë, to try and ameliorate the circumstances [residents] are living under.”
