Six arrests were made during a major police operation to support the eviction of protesters from a London housing estate which has become a rallying point for campaigners opposing controversial regeneration schemes.

A standoff following scuffles late on Tuesday at the Aylesbury Estate, which is being cleared for demolition before a £1.5bn regeneration project, after the local council moved to evict a group who took over part of the estate following a March for Homes protest in London earlier this month.

Notting Hill Housing was named last year as the development partner for a 20-year regeneration scheme to build 4,000 homes.



Taking inspiration from recent housing campaigns such as Focus E15 and New Era, the people involved in the the occupation at the Aylesbury had mounted a last-ditch legal bid to challenge their eviction by Southwark council.

Speaking at the scene shortly after the eviction on Tuesday night, activist Charlie Ebert accused the police of heavy handedness and said the estate had become synonymous with a London housing shortage affecting the poor.

“What’s going on here is effectively social cleansing to make London a nice ‘clean’ place for the rich,” he said. “A group of us wanted to stand in the way of that so we took over some of the flats as an act of solidarity.”

Scene after eviction of housing activists at Aylesbury Estate, London https://t.co/mmYtN93BXm — Ben Quinn (@BenQuinn75) February 17, 2015

Southwark council, which described those who occupied the properties as squatters who did not represent the residents, argues that it is tackling the housing crisis and says it has built more affordable homes than any other borough in the past three years.

Mark Williams, cabinet member for regeneration, planning and transport at Southwark council, said on Wednesday morning: “These squatters ... are risking the delivery of the very homes they claim to be campaigning for, for the people they claim to be campaigning for.

“Southwark is working hard to tackle the London-wide housing crisis and in the last three years we have built more affordable homes than any other London borough, and we have started building the first of our 11,000 new council homes. However, this is a London-wide issue and others must also play their part to provide the homes Londoners so desperately need.”

The Metropolitan police said officers attended the estate to support Southwark council in ensuring that a court order granted by Lambeth county court ordering the premises to be vacated was adhered to.

A spokesperson added: “A number of people voluntarily left the premises; some did not. Six people were arrested for a variety of criminal offences.”

Activists later said that they were continuing to occupying another part of the estate.

Guy Smallman, a freelance photojournalist, tweeted:



One of London’s largest, the estate was the setting for Tony Blair’s first speech as prime minister in 1997. Appearing on one of its characteristic concrete walkways, he pledged to deliver people “forgotten by government,” including its 7,500 residents, from the urban decay he had chosen the estate to represent.

However, residents voted in 2001 by a large majority against the transfer of its council stock to a housing association, scuppering redevelopment attempts to create a more “economically mixed” community.

Some residents have long resented the estate’s starring role in a Channel 4 ident in which flying concrete pieces come together to form the number four.

The Channel 4 ident

For mobile users: view the Channel 4 ident here