5 years in the past on Saturday twenty third September 2017 I photographed a energetic march in North London towards council plans for an enormous giveaway of council housing to builders earlier than dashing all the way down to Brixton in South London the place low paid staff on the Ritzy cinema had been on strike for a yr.
Haringey towards council housing sell-off
When Labour got here to energy in 1997, Tony Blair made his first speech as prime minister within the centre of London’s Aylesbury Property, declaring that “the poorest individuals in our nation have been forgotten by authorities” and promising that housing can be on the centre of his authorities’s programme.
However their coverage of property regeneration has proved a catastrophe, resulting in the demolition of social housing and its alternative by housing for the wealthy and abroad buyers, together with small quantities of extremely unaffordable ‘inexpensive housing’ and a largely token quantity of properties at social rents.
As an article within the Monetary Instances by Anna Minton in January 2022 identified, Labour’s persevering with assist for Thatcher’s ‘Proper-to-Purchase’ and for ‘buy-to-let mortgages’ along with the pegging of housing profit to market ranges inspired an infinite progress of purchase to let properties from beforehand council flats and homes. In 2019 a Larger London Authority report discovered that 42 per cent of properties bought below Proper to Purchase had been now privately let, with common rents in London of £1752 within the non-public sector in comparison with social rents of £421 a month.
As Minton additionally factors out, below New Labour there have been solely 7,870 new council properties constructed throughout their 13 years in workplace, a miniscule quantity in comparison with Thatcher’s interval as Conservative prime ministers when the bottom annual quantity was 17,710 properties.
Below New Labour the typical was 562 per yr in comparison with 41,343 below Thatcher – although numbers dropped steeply throughout her tenure. Housing Associations have supplied some social housing, however have develop into more and more extra business of their operations.
Labour’s housing insurance policies had been disastrous and largely proceed, with Labour councils in London persevering with to collude with builders to demolish council-owned properties. A main instance of this was the proposed ‘Haringey Growth Car’, HDV, below which Haringey Council was making an enormous switch of council housing to Australian multinational Lendlease.
The protest in Haringey was a energetic one involving many native residents in addition to different housing activists from throughout London. The council’s deal would have led to the destruction of lots of the council’s estates over a 15 yr interval, and led to a revolt at native elections which changed a lot of these backing the scheme by extra left-wing Labour members supported by Momentum.
Below new administration, the council has produced an up to date model of its redevelopment plans, though some activists see these as nonetheless representing a give-away to builders. However there does appear a larger emphasis on collaboration with the area people over redevelopment schemes and on offering a larger component of social housing.
Native authorities remains to be topic to restrictions imposed by nationwide insurance policies, and specifically insurance policies that encourage rising home costs, rents and subsidise non-public landlords, whereas nonetheless making it onerous for councils to construct new council properties.
I left the march near its finish at Finsbury Park to catch the tube all the way down to Brixton.
Haringey towards council housing sell-off
One yr of Ritzy strike – Brixton
Strikers on the Ritzy Cinema in Brixton had been celebrating a yr of strike motion with a rally supported by different commerce unionists, together with the United Voices of the World and the IWGB and different union branches.
The BECTU strikers had been demanding the London Residing Wage, sick pay, maternity and paternity pay and for managers, supervisors, cooks and technical employees to be correctly valued for his or her work. The additionally demand that 4 sacked union reps are reinstated.
BECTU had been in dispute with the Ritzy since 2014, and had known as for a boycott of the cinema, which was solely lastly known as off in 2019. The Ritzy is one in every of a community of cinemas operated by Picturehouse Cinemas Ltd and owned by Cineworld, the world’s second largest cinema chain, based mostly in London and working in 10 nations together with the USA.
The Ritzy was closed for the rally, After various speeches there was a shock with the arrival to cheers of a newly acquired ‘Precarious Staff Cellular’ vivid yellow Reliant Robin, outfitted with a robust amplifier and loudspeaker. After extra speeches this led the protesters in a sluggish march round central Brixton.
Tags: ‘Precarious Staff Cellular, anniversary, BECTU, Brixton, purchase to let, Cineworld, Class Battle, concil housing, council estates, demolition, property regeneration, Haringey, HDV, home constructing, housing insurance policies, IWGB, Lendlease, London, London Residing Wage, march, market rents, New Labour, peter Marshall, Picturehouse Cinemas, privated builders, protest, Ritzy Cinema, Ritzy strike, sacked union reps, social rents, commerce unionists, unaffordable housing, union recognition, UVW, victimisation
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