Alton Estate Residents Call for Homes to Be Renovated
Say flats have not been maintained ahead of cancelled demolition
Angus Robertson on the Alton Estate
March 20, 2023
A group of Alton Estate residents say homes plagued by damp and mould should be revamped instead of knocked down. Locals claimed flats in the old demolition zone on the Alton Estate in Roehampton were not maintained while proposals to knock them down and build more than 1,000 new housing units were being considered for almost a decade.
Plans under Wandsworth Council’s old administration would have seen 288 flats demolished and replaced with 1,108 flats of which 261 would be classed as affordable. Regeneration plans were formally drawn up in 2014 but had been discussed for years before.
But the authority scrapped the masterplan after switching hands from Conservatives to Labour for the first time in 44 years at the local elections last May. The new administration argued it did not include enough council homes – with a net gain of 48 at social rent, according to a report in September.
The council is drawing up new proposals to present for consultation, along with short-term works. This means the immediate threat of demolition has been withdrawn but nothing is off the table.
Community group Alton Action put forward a vision for the estate focussed on alternatives to demolition, drawn up in response to the old masterplan. The plan calls for more council homes to be built, along with the refurbishment of most flats, shops and facilities in the old demolition zone. It also proposes new shops, including a bigger supermarket, community facilities and workspaces.
Members told the Local Democracy Reporting Service ditching the old plans is a good opportunity but warned the council must develop new proposals in partnership with residents.
Angus Robertson moved onto the estate in 2003 and said the old plans would have been “disastrous” with years of disruption for few positives. He claimed the council did not prove the blocks needed to be demolished and instead “let the buildings decline” to say “look at it – it’s all falling into disrepair, we might as well knock it down”.
Mr Robertson said, “We’ve now had nine years nearly of that happening so these buildings compared to the other bits of the estate are in far worse repair. Roofs, windows, doors – all those things that have been routinely replaced elsewhere – have been left. So people have got very cold places that are hard to heat, lots of damp and mould.” He said shared spaces have not been maintained either, including doors, entry systems and lifts.
Mr Robertson said Roehampton is “isolated” in terms of transport and the old plans would have been like “dropping a new town into an already busy area”. He added, “There’s very little here for people so the premise that you can then drop in 2,000-plus new residents without really doing anything about all of that infrastructure, we’re saying, doesn’t really stack up – it isn’t fair to people who live here already.”
Block on the Alton Estate, Roehampton, in the former demolition zone
Another member who has lived on the estate for 17 years, and wished to remain anonymous, said residents “don’t need anything really to be knocked down, we just need things to be refurbished”. She said: “You do have a group of people who… say: ‘Let’s tear it down’. But that response is reactionary to how it looks.”
She said, “If they knock it down it isn’t for us, and actually it isn’t for the investment of the community. It doesn’t create a local economy, it doesn’t build a community, it just creates more isolation.” She said giving the estate a facelift and making basic improvements in the short-term would be welcomed by residents.
But the mother warned, “For this next generation of children who again get consulted and made excited about all these plans, but actually by the time these plans come to fruition they’re not going to be able to enjoy and appreciate it.”
The estate has also changed over the course of regeneration plans being discussed, Mr Robertson said. He said blocks previously marked for demolition were a “tight-knit community” but “because people were threatened with demolition, a lot of them have moved out” while other residents died and their homes were acquired for temporary accommodation due to the housing crisis.
He said, “The leaseholders were pretty unhappy, people in temporary accommodation were unhappy because the places aren’t maintained and long-term council residents were fed up because you’ve got this fractured community – a lot of churn, a lot of people who own the places rent them out.”
The group is now calling for a citizen participation process to lead the development of options for the future of the estate.
Lee Roberts, Conservative prospective parliamentary candidate for Putney, said, “The outgoing Conservative administration had a plan which after several years of review had been agreed upon between Wandsworth Labour councillors and the Mayor of London.
“The decision to abandon a tested and approved scheme is based entirely upon ideology and will waste time and money – as the new administration has already spent an undisclosed six-figure fee on external consultants (Inner Circle) to start the process from scratch. This will mean more years of delays and dashed hopes for Alton residents who deserve better.
“In addition, the previous model combined a significant investment of council funds with significant private sector investment to make this good value for the taxpayer. Our concern remains that of a new council driven entirely by ideology ignoring fiscal discipline which long term will only create debt that the next Conservative administration will have to fix.”
A Wandsworth Council spokesperson said, “The council is actively listening to the views and ideas of residents as it reviews options for the regeneration of the Alton area and provision of new council rent homes. We are still committed to investing in and improving the estate and a programme of improvement works are being brought forward to improve the lives of people living in the Alton Estate in advance of any wider proposals which will be fully consulted on.”
The council did not respond to the claim of a six figure sum being spent on consultants.
Following separate planning applications, 10 homes have already been built at McKinney House on the estate and 14 are being built at Fontley Way.
Charlotte Lilywhite - Local Democracy Reporter