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Housing campaigners protest empty homes outside City Hall ahead of mayoral elections
Campaigners have set up a ‘tent city’ outside London’s City Hall to demand that mayoral candidates commit to social housing investment.
Protest group Housing Rebellion called on the London mayor to refurbish and fill empty homes and focus on social housing provision.
Campaigners criticised the “political consensus between the main parties” ahead of the city’s mayoral elections on Thursday 2 May, claiming that they are “only promising to promote more private housebuilding, amounting only to more polluting and unaffordable ‘luxury’ flats”.
“As private rents skyrocket and the government refuses to stop no-fault evictions, private renting has become completely unsustainable,” Housing Rebellion said.
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“Councils are buckling under the costs of temporary accommodation for homeless people, which is also sourced from the private sector due to chronic shortage of social homes,” the direct action group added.
The protest started on Sunday 28 April, with protesters camping overnight.
Campaigners set up 32 tents to represent each of the London boroughs, plus an extra one, dubbed the “London Borough of Empty Homes”, for the homes that currently sit vacant.
According to data collated by campaign group Action on Empty Homes, there are 85,229 long-term empty and second homes across all London boroughs.
Thirteen mayoral candidates are competing in the upcoming elections, with housing high up on the agenda. Current polls put Labour incumbent Sadiq Khan and Conservative candidate Susan Hall as the two front-runners.
Housing Rebellion has co-ordinated several demonstrations in recent weeks, including occupying an empty house on the Peabody-run Lesnes Estate in Thamesmead to protest against the estate’s demolition.
The campaigners want the G15 landlord to refurbish the 1960s estate instead of bulldozing it and said that current empty homes should be opened up and occupied. The estate consists of 596 homes – 288 flats and 308 townhouses.
Peabody entered an £8bn joint venture with developer Lendlease in 2019 to draw up a masterplan for the area.
In October 2022, Peabody gained planning permission for up to 1,950 homes for phases three to seven of the masterplan, which includes the Lesnes Estate. Peabody has pledged to make at least 35% of the homes “affordable”.
But campaigners claimed that long-standing residents of the Lesnes Estate were facing compulsory purchase of their homes at “a fraction” of the price of the planned new homes.
The Mayor of London’s has been contacted for a response.
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