Grasping Property Builders Reward Themselves: Eight years in the past on Tuesday 12 April 2015 I photographed housing activists protesting exterior the costly dinner at a Mayfair lodge for the 2015 Property Awards. The protesters held their very own different awards ceremony for housing protesters as part of the occasion.
Amongst these in my footage is Aysen from the Aylesbury Property. The Fight4Aylesbury exhibition in her flat on the property continues at this time, Friday twenty first April 2023, and on Saturday twenty second and Sunday twenty third. Components of a few of my footage from this occasion had been utilized in collages in that present.
Property Awards at Mayfair Lodge – Grosvenor Home Lodge, Park Lane
Property builders have powered the unbelievable rise in London Housing costs by constructing luxurious flats for primarily abroad traders, a lot of which stay unoccupied to be offered later at even increased costs to different traders, and likewise by working with London councils to redevelop social housing largely for personal sale.
Along with the actions of successive governments – Tory and Labour – that they had created what by 2015 was clearly the worst scarcity of inexpensive housing in historical past, with a file variety of evictions and the doubling of tough sleeping in London. Over 50,000 households have needed to transfer out of London whereas many extra properties within the capital stay empty.
As I wrote: “Housing in London has ceased to be one thing to satisfy human want, and as an alternative is servicing greed and selfishness.” And the costly dinner going down that night within the luxurious Mayfair lodge was to offer awards to the property builders for his or her greed. Amongst these participating within the protest exterior had been individuals from estates that are being redeveloped, together with Southwark Council’s Aylesbury property and Sweets Method in north London who had been dealing with eviction due to the coverage of social cleaning pushed by councils and builders.
Individuals arriving on the dinner had been met by a loud crowd calling for a good housing coverage exterior the ‘pink carpet’ entrance to the lodge on Park Lane and needed to stroll previous the protesters to enter. Police tried to maintain the doorway clear and a few lodge workers directed the friends to different entrances to the lodge, the place the protesters additionally adopted.
The protesters held an alternate awards ceremony in entrance of the lodge entrance, awarding giant cardboard cups for the Younger Protester of the 12 months, Placard Making, Demonstration of the 12 months and Occupation of the 12 months.
Protesters additionally briefly occupied occupied a neighbouring department of property brokers Foxton, who’ve performed a number one function within the gentrification of London. Along with different property brokers they’ve additionally been an vital affect on the housing insurance policies of each Tory and Labour.
Foxtons is infamous amongst those that lease property for driving up rents – and in 2022 the London Renters Union reported that their annual income had elevated by £5m as rents in London went up by a mean of 20.5% in 3 months, with one Foxtons tenant reporting an increase of £12,000 per 12 months!
Shortly earlier than I left it turned clear that almost all of these coming to the dinner had been being directed to a rear service entrance to the lodge and the protesters moved across the block to carry a rally there. The gate was quickly closed and there have been some minor scuffles as police tried to maneuver the protesters away. I heard later that there had been two arrests after I left.
Many extra footage at Property Awards at Mayfair Lodge.
Tags: 2015 Property Awards, different awards, awards ceremony, empty properties, Fight4Aylesbury exhibition, Foxtons, greed, Grosvenor Home Lodge, housing, housing activists, housing disaster, London, luxurious flats, Mayfair, abroad traders, Park Lane, peter Marshall, police, property builders, protest, tough sleepers, social cleaning, social housing
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