For the many, not the few – Lewisham Labour on housing (Besson St + Achilles St)

Not sure why red leaflets keep popping through the letter box chez Crossfields. It's not as though Labour aren't going to win the local election anyway, and voting Labour in local elections is not going to get rid of this awful Tory government!

According to one of the flyers, local ward councillors Brenda Dacres, Joe Dromey and Paul Maslin are standing up "for the many not the few". But living in Deptford, one wonders who "the many" are, since Deptford isn't mentioned once in their flyer.

In the other flyer, New Cross Labour are announcing a 'radical' manifesto. Deptford's mentioned twice, but only in the small print. Apparently Paul Maslin grew up here (though he doesn't live here anymore) and is "a partner in an art gallery". That'll be the one that used to be on Deptford High Street which he sold up to move to trendy Shoreditch; the lovely cafe and gallery that he flogged to "Jennings The Bookmaker" who sold it on to Coral, which precipitated an escalation of betting shops arriving on the high street that the rest of us then had to fight off. Thanks, Paul.

Deptford is also mentioned in the boast that New Cross Labour "secured the return of the Deptford anchor to our high street". What high street is that then? New Cross High Street? In any case, as local artists and residents who did most of the work to bring back the anchor have logged in full, it took four years and a petition of 4,000 people before Lewisham Labour agreed to return it. New Cross ward councillors played only a small part.

With the mantra "For the many, not the few"(a phrase first coined by New Labour in the 90s) we presume they mean the self-serving 'one per cent' who hold all the power and wealth. But the left has always championed the minority, surely. So what about when "the few" are tenants and leaseholders who don't want to be forced out of their homes so that Lewisham can house "the many" in their expensive 'place-making' vanity projects?

In its Green Paper on Housing, Labour promise to reverse all the damaging Tory housing policies of the past few years, but this may not be radical enough, as estate regeneration (demolishing perfectly sound homes) is still on the agenda. Having helped create the housing crisis by sitting on land without developing it and keeping prices artificially high by failing to build, the building industry must be wetting itself at the prospect of the profits it'll make out of all the new house building Labour proposes – just as it did in the 1960s, when it jerry built masses of social housing that later had to be demolished.

What are Lewisham Labour promising on housing then? Just picking out a few:

• Introduce ballots on any estate regeneration scheme that includes replacing existing homes and back this up with a Residents' Charter that guarantees all residents the right to remain on their estate, and which guarantees an increase in genuinely affordable housing.

Blimey, that's three bullet points in one, surely? First of all, what do they mean by "replacing existing homes"? Surely they mean "demolishing people's homes", don't they? Afraid to say the word? Afraid to admit the environmental impact and massive carbon footprint that word evokes? Say demolition, that's what you mean! The rest of this garbled statement indicates that ballots will be worded so unintelligibly that residents threatened with demolition will hardly know what they're voting for.

• Not sell strategic council land to private property developers
• Our target will be to achieve 50% genuinely affordable homes
• Publish all viability assessments so developers have to account to the public when they refuse to meet our target

This sounds good, but does it include Housing Associations (which are private until a change of government un-privatises them again)? And haven't they already sold off ALL the strategic land in Deptford to private developers (with council estates the only land left to redevelop)? Will the financial details of council-led partnerships with private developers be open to scrutiny? And are 'genuinely affordable homes' genuinely affordable?

Much of this is led by conditions of GLA grant funding it seems. But whatever now seems 'right' makes what has gone on previously look terribly 'wrong'. The new Mayor will still have to preside over the results of decisions made by the previous administration (when he was Cabinet Member for Housing and these rules did not apply). Or are they actually proud of schemes like Heathside & Lethbridge where 328 social tenants were forced out and took priority on the waiting list, pushing those already on it further down it, so that Family Mosaic could build 616 private homes?

• Build a new generation of council-owned homes for private rents providing long-term tenancies of up to 10 years with rent controls

This must refer to the mass of publicly owned land down in New Cross Gate at Besson Street. A great place to build new social homes, you'd think. But no, this is where Lewisham Labour has decided to enter the Private Rental Sector through a joint venture (50/50) with Grainger plc, "the UK's largest listed residential landlord”.

The deal is to build 232 units, of which 65% will be let at market rent levels, and 35% as Living Rents. None of the tenants will be drawn from the Council’s housing waiting list. Tenancies will be a minimum of 3 years and maximum of 10.

The Council call their "35%" of this development ‘affordable’, as that’s what the GLA call it. In fact Living Rent is one of three types of what the GLA call “genuinely affordable” homes. They describe the London Living Rent as "homes for middle-income households"not earning above £60k p/a and the rent depends on where you live. Lewisham Council, on the other hand, claims that “Living Rent” is linked to the London Living Wage. It assumes that two earners occupy each flat, each paying 35% of their net income on rent. 

In other words, it can only be described as affordable if you share a flat, which many people do of course. But if you're a single mum or dad, you won't be able to afford a two bed flat for you and your children on your Living Wage take home pay of £326p/w when the Lewisham benchmarked London Living Rent is £225.46. Nor will you be able to afford to sleep with the children in the same room when a one-bed flat is £202.85. This development's not for them. 

How did this get past Cllr Dromey who claims he refuses to support any scheme that does not include "genuinely" affordable housing? Especially when 65% of homes will be at market rent levels and all the cash is going to a private company? A tidy profit on public land for Grainger plc –who met the Council at a speed-dating developer event at the Shard in February 2017. How can Dromey ignore the angry locals who are disappointed that a site which originally contained council housing (demolished in 2007) is not providing any homes for social rent when the area has so many low-income people in need? 

Of course middle class or middle-income people need affordable homes too, but it's really annoying when your councillor votes to demolish people's homes and keeps banging on about building new social housing to get people off the waiting list. 

In the deal with Grainger PLC, the Council won’t be selling the land, but rather “investing” in it, and topping up its revenue with the rental income stream to fund services. Although they claim they don’t plan to try this elsewhere, the proposed partnership allows for a similar venture to happen on other sites without having to choose another business partner, so it’s probably a pilot project that may see more unaffordable housing on public land elsewhere in the borough. So much for that waiting list!

The idea of not selling off public land sounds good, but actually this kind of scheme is a bit alarming. Global corporate landlords and private equity have been waiting for opportunities like this – for state owned land to fall into private hands, ripe for the plucking. Such entities are already benefiting from tax exemptions facilitated by the Tory government's introduction of Real Estate Investment Trusts (REITs) where the biggest profits are currently being made in student accommodation, and purpose-built student housing REITs are now listed on the stock exchange. 

Perhaps Lewisham are partnering a REIT in their plans for Achilles Street in New Cross, where they want to demolish recently built student accommodation, 87 council homes and 15+ businesses in order to build 90 extra 'social' homes and a massive tower of new student accommodation. The options presented to residents were to 'do nothing', or 'retain existing homes and add 22 new ones on underused spaces', or 'comprehensively redevelop the area' (aka comprehensively demolish the area). Unfortunately for those whose homes and livelihoods are threatened and who haven't been able to make any plans for two years, the Council have made clear what their favoured option is (the latter) whilst also saying no decisions have been made and that all options are still being considered. This is your lovely Labour Council!

Another initiative the Tories came up with to feather their nests is Build To Rent, a current example of which is the two towers going up on Deptford Creekside by Essential Living. All homes to rent, financed by global fund managers M3. But private equity firms are all too lightly regulated and far less accountable to tenants, the parent company being off-shore and answerable to no one. With the growing privatisation of public housing and the recent shift towards renting because no one can afford to buy, such companies are poised for a take over of London's privatised 'affordable rent' stock. Regeneration of our housing estates where councils partner with massive private interests on public land could lead to the mass transfer of social and public housing to the private sector. Just like the NHS.

Academics have shown that the shortage of housing and corresponding boom in UK house prices and rents has been carefully prepared and legislated for over a number of years, and Labour have been complicit in it. As far back as 1998, New Labour's Urban Task Force led by architect Richard Rogers  embraced American ideas of gentrifying the inner cities by building on brownfield land in Towards an Urban Rennaissance. But it was Lord Adonis in 2015 who put the nail in the coffin, with City Villages: More Homes, Better Communities, which advocated building hundreds of new "city villages" on existing council estates because the boom in land and house prices would enable local authorities to leverage their land ownership in partnership with private and voluntary sector developers (who are now privatised). The Tories promptly redesignated council estates as 'brownfield'.

Lord Adonis’s 2015 report includes a paper by the outgoing Mayor of Lewisham Steve Bullock and the former Leader of the Council Barry Quirk. They allude to the “personal attachment and belonging – to a locality, to a place” and then go on to say “most of us will move home at some point as our personal circumstances change and develop”. Yes, but we are hopefully in charge of such choices. They conclude that “developing more urban villages within London over the next 10 years will not only give people more places in which to live, it will give them more homes in which they can build belonging.” Tell that to the people you want to forcibly removed from their homes who already belong!

When Cllr Dromey talks about the huge number of people desperate for affordable housing, he falls into the same trap as everyone else – that the only answer is to build more housing. But, as Architects for Social Housing (ASH) argue, the housing shortage in London is a crisis of affordability, not supply, and building more homes does not push house and rental prices down. Estate regeneration is not a solution – on the contrary, it is helping to produce the crisis: "The motivation for demolishing and redeveloping estates is not the housing of London's rising population at higher densities in more and better homes, but to provide investment opportunities for global capital and the enormous profits to be made from building high-value properties on some of the most valuable land in the world." 

ASH are particularly critical of Labour councils who present themselves as opposed to Tory attacks on social housing while they continue to demolish estates and claim refurbishment is financially 'unviable'. It is not just Tory policies such as Right To Buy, Housing Benefit capping, Help to Buy, Rent to Buy and the failure to regulate private developer's viability assessments that contribute to the lack of affordable homes, but also GLA grants to private Housing Associations to build affordable housing for private sale, local authority funding for estate regeneration schemes and the transfer of public land into private ownership. They're all privatisation schemes subsidised by the public purse. Will Labour want to stop it?

Tidemill and Reginald Road #3 - Deptford Husting

As mentioned in our previous post, residents at Reginald Road handed in yet another petition to the Council last week saying they don't want their homes demolished. They also asked the Council to stop harassing them. This obviously fell on deaf ears, as officers from the Housing Strategy team were back door knocking again within a few days. Not only that, but last week a tenant was told by Lewisham Homes that they would not carry out any repairs and she would have to fund them herself. 

Lewisham Labour pledge to introduce balloting of estates threatened with demolition in their new manifesto, which is too late for Reginald Road, although since the development hasn't been fully signed off yet there's no reason why it should be. Of course there's no guarantee the officers in charge of balloting won't use the same manipulative (and now bullying) techniques that they're employing now, and twist a majority ballot against demolition into 100% consent.

Meanwhile, at the Deptford Hustings held in Old Tidemill Garden last Sunday (watch a recording  here), Cllr Joe Dromey repeatedly referred to a young woman he'd met on his campaign door-knocking rounds who is in dire need of re-housing. He wouldn't say which estate she was from but kept referring to her like a mascot (or a trope for his election campaign). Because she had cried in his lap, he was personally guaranteeing she be rehoused.

In a perpetual state of campaigning, usually in support of Council policy that goes against his own constituents, in March he was on Facebook saying the same thing: "When we were door-knocking on the Winslade on Saturday, I met a woman who is living in a tiny studio apartment, riddled with damp, with her two kids. All of them suffer from mental health problems, and they were in a really bad way. I'm trying to get them moved, but we have so few social homes, and there is so much need. They deserve a decent home, and this new estate in Deptford will make an enormous difference."

Candidates Joe Dromey (Lab), Jerry Barnett (LibDem) and Andrea Carey-Fuller (Green) just before the Deptford Hustings started on Sunday

While we agree that it must be truly awful for the young mother he met, our first thought is that the Winslade estate is owned by the Council and managed by Lewisham Homes. If the property is 'damp riddled', whose fault is that? 

The Winslade has recently had "Decent Homes" work done, but as with most of the Lewisham Homes project-managed Decent Homes work done across the borough in the past few years, damp was never tackled; the work was based on desktop stock surveys done by Savills several years ago, with no attention paid to the issues in individual buildings. As Lewisham Homes tenants know full well, complaints about damp are rarely adequately dealt with and tenants are often told it is their own fault (for drying washing indoors for example), when more often than not it's the result of long term lack of repair to gutters, loose roof tiles or chimney flashing, faulty communal walkway surfaces, inadequate ventilation or a leaking boiler from another flat. After 12 years in existence, Lewisham Homes still does not have cyclical programmes in place to solve repetitive problems, and their repairs service can be summed up in short term fixes that lead to long term nightmares – yet they are now in charge of building new homes! 

Our second thought was "What about the people in Reginald House?!" who have been living with the threat of demolition for ten years – living in fear of displacement and unable to plan ahead – while Lewisham Council have faffed around trying to up affordable homes quotas, chopping and changing their minds, lying to residents, failing to communicate with them properly, trying to pick them off one-by-one, and not once considering the impact of their plans on people. 

In the early days of so-called 'consultation', Housing Strategy officers reported to Mayor & Cabinet that the scheme had lots of support and the only ones who didn't want the scheme to go ahead were older residents who'd been living there a long time. Well yes, what a surprise! Pesky old people – the ones most invested in their homes, with the most to lose! 

As one campaigner responded to Cllr Dromey on Facebook, "you are riding roughshod over one disadvantaged community to serve what you perceive as an even more disadvantaged community. It is divisive."

This news report from 2017 by East London Lines captures how people in Reginald House feel:

Stress, a sense of loss, grieving, poorer mental health and a decline in physical health have been found to occur in individuals who are forced from their homes. Stress can also occur from the anticipation of dislocation and the lack of understanding from the authorities. Qualitative studies in the US have found the sense of bereavement that comes from being displaced is particularly acute among the elderly. 

In her recent book about the "financialisation of housing" Big Capital–who is London for? Anna Minton documents, among other things, the effects of demolition and displacement on residents at the Heygate, where some people are thought to have died as a result of the upheaval.  

Academics refer to the 'phenomenology of place' to distinguish 'space' (ie a unit of housing) from 'place' (home). Both home and hometown are intimate places, full of memories, and to dismiss the 'emotional geography' of place simply reduces neighbourhood and home to a spatial commodity or just mere numbers. 

Lewisham Council are offering the Reginald House tenants new homes in the new development. "Look!" they say, "you'll have a lift, you'll have a brand new home!", but fail to see the difference between opening your front door to the outside world as you have done for years and opening your front door onto a corridor – let alone the extra costs incurred in service charges for maintaining a lift. Or the difference between knowing exactly where your neighbours are, then finding them transferred to a strange new block – or even another town.

At the Deptford Hustings Cllr Dromey (son of Harriet Harmen MP and Jack Dromey MP) accused members of the audience of "nimbyism" – he twice muttered under his breath "It's never here though, is it, it's always somewhere else" and "Never in this spot, though, is it" as if no one wanted to see new housing built. As we have previously noted, campaigners have shown it is possible to build more housing on the site without demolishing homes and the garden. So he obviously missed all the relevant points and insulted everyone in Reginald House at the same time (not that they were ever going to vote for him anyway)... 

Managed decline

The exterior of 2-16A Reginald Road has been allowed to become run-down (while the insides have benefitted from Decent Homes work) in what is usually referred to as "managed decline" – or deliberate neglect, as film-maker Paul Sng describes in his film Dispossession: The Great Social Housing Swindle. 

At Reginald Road, service charges and rent are being paid but no repair work is being done. It's not as though the money isn't there to refurbish homes, it's just being spent elsewhere. An FOI request revealed that in the time that £104,000 was taken from Reginald House residents in rent and service charges, only £126 has been spent on repairs.

At Achilles Street in New Cross where 87 homes and 15+ businesses are under threat of demolition in Council-led estate regeneration, the residents made an FOI request to find out whether any money was being spent on their buildings. They discovered that whilst £2,601,009 had been collected in rent and service charges in the past six years, only £248,899 had been spent on repairs and maintenance. 

The way Lewisham Homes is managing the Council's current stock leads one to suspect that the Winslade estate – where Cllr Dromey met the desperately unhappy mum – is next in line for demolition and "regeneration". Meanwhile, residents at Achilles Street refer to Lewisham Homes as "slum landlords". 

Tidemill and Reginald House update #1 – secrecy and lies

On March 15th, Lewisham's Mayor & Cabinet met in secret to approve further plans for the redevelopment of the Tidemill site that includes the demolition of Old Tidemill Garden and 16 council flats at 2-30A Reginald Road. This was one of two agenda items discussed behind closed doors that night (the other being their plans for Besson Street) due to "commercial sensitivity". While campaigners protested outside the town hall, Cllr Joe Dromey (New Cross ward councillor and  Cabinet member for Policy & Performance) tweeted the outcome of the Tidemill item:

“Great Lewisham Council meeting this eve. Delighted we’ve been able to increase the number of social homes at the Old Tidemill development. It’s now 54% social housing, and 75% affordable. There will now be 117 socially rented homes on the new estate, an increase of 104 social homes. I think that’s the largest amount of social homes delivered in any development in the four years I’ve been a Councillor.” 

While Joe's figures are a little inaccurate (see below) he's right to say it's the largest amount of social homes delivered in any development in the past four years, including any council-led schemes. For example, at Heathside & Lethbridge, the council-led "regeneration scheme" at Blackheath Hill/Lewisham Road, the two estates combined originally consisted of 638 flats (527 on social rents and 111 leaseholders). The Council estimated it would cost £29.3m to do a high quality refurbishment (beyond Decent Homes standards) on all the blocks.

But instead they chose to partner with Family Mosaic housing association to demolish all the blocks and build 1192 new flats at a cost of £272m. According to figures provided by G15 (the group representing London's largest housing associations), at completion of the phased redevelopment in 2020, only 17% will be 'social rents' (199). 21% (248) will be 'affordable rent', 11% shared ownership/equity, and a whopping 52% (616) will be for private sale. This represents a loss of 328 'social rents' – and decanted tenants take priority on the Council's waiting list, depriving others on the list.

So, there certainly a need for some rebalancing! Meanwhile, with no further info than Joe's tweets to go on, the Deptford Dame was able to report four days later that the Council had published some very short minutes of the key decision made on Tidemill (which can also be found here – look for Deptford Southern Housing Sites):

“to increase the amount of affordable housing through increased grant funding, to change 43 homes from private sale to London Affordable Rent (social rent) at a cost to the Council of £4,310,211, and 16 homes from private sale to shared ownership at no additional cost”.

That's more or less it. But let's go back to Joe's figures. If you add 43 additional London Affordable Rents to the original 61 (74 new builds minus 13 demolished tenanted homes) you get 104, as Joe said. But this is not 54%, it is under 50% (of the total 209 units). And if you add 16 additional ‘shared ownership homes’ to the original 22 (25 new builds minus 3 demolished leaseholder homes), you get 38. 104+38 = 142, which is not a 75% total of affordable housing. It is under 68%.  

Never mind, it's a great improvement on the previous quota (8% in 2016 and 41% in 2017) and in fact is well over the 50% required by the GLA to grant funding (at around £60k per affordable flat). Trebles all round. In fact, if there's that much subsidy sloshing about and quite a lot of it coming from the Council itself in previously unused Right To Buy receipts as well as selling the land at "less than best consideration" (actually about 25% of what Family Mosaic paid for its site at Sun Wharf), then why it is still necessary to DEMOLISH 16 HOMES and a much needed mature green space, when no one who actually lives here wants that?

The residents at Reginald Road certainly don't want it, but does anyone listen to them? They have been living with the threat of demolition since 2008 and have several times petitioned against the demolition of their homes. The latest petition was handed in to Lewisham on April 24th and was signed by 12 out of 15 residents (there are 16 homes, but one is presently empty).

Not only have the residents declared several times that they want to keep their homes, but the plans involve a stock transfer (from Lewisham Homes to a housing association), which by law, requires a ballot. Like Heathside & Lethbridge and others, they have never been offered one. Lewisham get round this by offering tenants rehousing in Council property in other parts of the borough if they don't want to move to a new housing association flat.

The Mayor of London (along with Lewisham's Mayor-in-waiting) is now proposing mandatory ballots of residents for schemes where any demolition is planned, as a strict condition of any GLA funding. Soon after consultation on the policy began, Sian Berry (London Assembly member for the Green Party) discovered that the Mayor of London had already signed off funding for 34 estates to dodge his own new ballot rules. Unfortunately, Tidemill is on that list because the GLA signed a contract for funding in January, despite not yet having approved the planning application in full.

We put in an FOI request to see the officer's report that led to the key decision made on 15th March behind closed doors. The answer is as expected – the Council are not required to oblige the request. This is because they are partnering with private companies – Peabody Housing, Sherrygreen Homes and Mullaley – who are not public bodies. This confidentiality applies to any regeneration scheme where Lewisham partners with housing associations and private builders.

Architects for Social Housing (ASH) spent over three years trying to obtain figures from Lambeth Council via FOI when working on alternative community-led plans for the Central Hill Estate in Crystal Palace. They concluded: "The desire of the private sector development partners to hide such information…should be an argument in favour of disclosure in any proposed housing development – let alone one based on the demolition and privatisation of publicly owned assets; let alone one that will receive millions of pounds of public funding…"

They go on, "In the wake of Grenfell, how can any council continue to hide its financial deals with private sector partners behind the cloak of commercial confidentiality?... Who can deny that it is not in the public interest to know the corners being cut by the kind of private deals that made the Grenfell Tower fire a disaster waiting to happen, when those same deals are being withheld from public scrutiny on every estate regeneration scheme that demolishes council homes and replaces them with developments built and managed by private companies?”

Housing associations are private companies. Even the Mayor of London says in the draft new London Plan (para 4.10.5): “Given the impact of estate regeneration schemes on existing residents, it is particularly important that information about the viability of schemes is available to the public even where a high level of affordable housing is being delivered.”

Surely £4+m of public money and the sale of public assets to a private company demands full transparency?

New Cross Assembly Tuesday 29 March + new occupation at Deptford Town Hall + Ward boundaries

Crossfields have been leafleted about the above event (the New Cross Assembly). Before you bin the leaflet, think about this: when was the last time you saw your councillors?

The agenda is already set:
- TFL will present plans for the new London overground extension
- New Cross Ward Action Plan
- New Cross Assembly Fund

The second item may present an opportunity for discussion - or not (we are seeking clarification). Those attending will be 'asked to agree the new action plan which looks at addressing these priorities: crime and antisocial behaviour, youth provision, traffic and road safety, lack of decent shops, flytipping and rubbish'. We note there may be an opportunity here to discuss the proliferation of betting shops, a subject our councillors have been very quiet about.

The third item will be of interest to anyone wanting funding for a project. Note that the application process will start from the date of the meeting and close on Tuesday 10 April. However, since 10 April is actually a Sunday, we have sought clarification on this too. Either way, if you've got an idea for a project that will benefit New Cross ward, you have less than 3 weeks from today to put together a proposal.

The meeting takes place at 7pm at Woodpecker Community Centre, SE14 6EU.

Ward boundaries

Meanwhile, you may like to raise your blood pressure by pondering on Ward Boundaries. Why has Deptford not got its own Ward? Why is Deptford High Street split in half between New Cross Ward and Evelyn Ward? Why are we lumped in with New Cross? Each of the 18 wards in Lewisham refer to a specific village/town, eg Sydenham, Forest Hill, Brockley, Blackheath, Lee Green etc, but there is no Deptford ward. This has been the case since 2002. Before that Deptford had its own ward, Grinling Gibbons, part of Lewisham North West that included Evelyn, Marlowe (New Cross) and Drake (Brockley).

Deptford Town Hall was built in 1905 to serve the Metropolitan Borough of Deptford, but was swallowed up by the London Borough of Lewisham in 1965. And of course now the town hall has been swallowed up by Goldsmiths College.

Deptford Town Hall Latest

Incidentally, as of last night, Goldsmiths students are now occupying the old Town Hall where the college's senior management are based.
We heard about the new occupation this morning via an email from Lewisham Anti Cuts Alliance (LACA), but now Seb Wheeler at East London Lines has the full story.

Postscript: And Transpontine has now posted with some pictures.

No more betting shops - update

We wrote to the Mayor and councillors about the latest license application from Betfred and got the following replies:

On behalf of the Mayor & Cabinet Office, Andy Williams wrote:

"Steve has asked me to let you know that In July 2009, Lewisham put forward 3 requests, under the Sustainable Communities Act, to amend the Gambling Act to give local authorities more freedom to limit the number of betting shops in an area. However, currently the Council's Licensing Authority has no power under legislation to refuse an application on the grounds that an area is becoming over congested with betting shops.

Each application is assessed on its own merits and can only be refused if objections by local people or organisations highlight a direct contravention of licensing objectives of the Gambling Act.

That said, objections have been received in relation to this application and it will be determined by the Council's licensing committee soon, possibly in February."

We suggested in response that the Mayor might like to make his position more clearly visible in a public statement, since many people mistakenly seem to think the Licensing Committee must be taking backhanders. They also believe the council has abandoned the Deptford community (and Catford, where there are 10 bookies around the high street), despite the large-scale civil amenities being built (which has led to limited and expensive parking). We are pleased to hear that the Mayor made representations in 2009, but what did he do in 2010?

Our original email to him wasn't just about numbers of betting shops either. We had to point out again that there were more than enough grounds under the Licensing Objectives relating to how gambling is linked to crime for an application from Betfred to be turned down.

But an email response from a member of the Licensing Team, Cllr Stella Jeffreys (Lab, Lewisham Central) clarified their position (without addressing crime):

"Thank you for your email.  I do appreciate your concern and as a member of the Licensing Committee I am aware of the public feeling on the proliferation of betting shops in particular areas.

As you note the law does not allow us to take the number of betting premises in an area into account, unlike alcohol licences in a designated cumulative impact area, and the logic of the Act is presumably that new premises will only open if there is a commercial benefit to the operators.  

In the past Lewisham has tried to stand up to prevent the opening of new betting shops but has incurred high costs when the companies have appealed.  At this time of massive budget reductions for Lewisham Council it would not be prudent for us to repeat that.

The only way forward is for Parliament to change the law.  I am sure that you have already lobbied Joan Ruddock the MP for Deptford on this matter, but as the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats are now in power, can I suggest that you also contact the relevant minister, John Penrose MP, Minister for Tourism and Heritage in the Department of Culture, Media and Sport."

We are grateful to Stella for her response. She manages to say that the borough cannot afford to turn down applications where the applicant can afford to appeal.

UPDATE: To be fair, it appears Lewisham Council was the lead authority on a proposal shortlisted by the Local Government Association and submitted to central government as a suggested amendment to the Sustainable Communities Act. It proposed that councils should have the power to cap the number of bookmakers in a certain area...see the Deptford Dame's post from March 2010.

Unfortunately, the implications of that are that if an armed robbery took place inside and outside Coral tomorrow it wouldn't make a blind bit of difference to Licensing's response to Betfred's application to open up across the road. They won't turn them down since they know they'd appeal and Lewisham can't or don't want to afford to fight the appeal.

And that Minister for Tourism & Heritage Stella mentioned would be the same John Penrose MP who would like to see the 2005 Gambling Act weakened even further to allow ordinary (adult only) slot machines take higher minimum stakes (from £1 to £2) so that amusement arcades in his constituency of Weston-super-Mare can do better business. Those B3 one-armed-bandits are just not as exciting as the FOBs (Fixed Odd Betting machines) that are only allowed to be installed in betting shops where you can touch the screen every 20 seconds in the vain hope of winning £500. Says Penrose "I would like to ensure these businesses remain competitive in these tough economic times." (Hansard) 

The 2005 Gambling Act debate

Apart from Penrose's initial preferences, in Parliament, the main issues being debated around the Act concern the Horseracing Betting Levy (which has helped fund British horse racing since the 1960s) and The Tote (the state-owned legal betting service founded in 1928 which also helps fund British horse racing, now a state-run casino as it keeps abreast of bookmaking trends, although it remains independent). Areas of debate on the Levy include Offshore Online Betting Businesses that are outside the Levy (Hills and Ladbrokes for instance), Overseas Racing (no Levy), Gross Profits Thresholds (percentage of total profits that can be paid by bookmakers, presently only 10%), Betting Exchanges (that operate outside bookmakers and is unlevied) and Media Rights (which bookmakers resent paying)...

The racing community claims that a series of loopholes exploited by bookmakers have resulted in the size of the levy on bookmakers' profits falling by more than a third in the past two years (£75m instead of £130m-£150m). Bookmakers argue that racing is no longer their main concern, though if you ever glance inside one, you'll know that it's the main event on all the screens. Obviously the shop isn't the only medium for betting and racing isn't the only thing we can bet on, but it can be argued that the demand for racing hasn't decreased (in fact attendance at race meetings has grown), just the opportunity for betting on everything else has increased. See Racing United for more on the Levy.

The Tote is a national asset that the government has been thinking of selling off to the highest bidder for some time (like Waterways and Woodlands), particularly since Gordon Brown as chancellor announced the intention in 2001. It has 517 high street betting shops and the monopoly to run "pool betting" (oh god, don't ask) online and at 60 racecourses in the UK. Allegedly, in the year to April 2010 it made profits of £13.3m on revenues of £2.8bn, and contributed £11.3m to the horse racing industry.

The Jockey Club (which regulates horse racing, owns and operates 13 racecourse etc) opposes the sale of the Tote, whilst Betfred was prepared to pay up to £250m in December 2010 (it was worth £400m in 2007), up against Paddy Power, Sportech (headed by Ian Penrose, shurely no relation) etc. Coral and Ladbrokes already have partnerships with the Tote. They are ruled out of bidding on "competition grounds". (Meanwhile, like they give a shit, Paddy Power was reported in December 2010 as buying Australian company Sportsbet for £86.2m).

I reckon the Tote is worth more than £250m because of its 'pool betting' monopoly but don't ask me why. Obviously I'm of a type that is averse to sell-offs anyway (such as waterways and woodlands, not to mention those already sold off), especially when some bastard gets it cheap. Then again, I've only seen toffs with plenty of money who own racehorses, why should they be subsidised for their jockeys, vets, trainers and prize money?

Both the Levy and the Tote are long-running sagas for the government. Penrose has been reported as considering various options other than a direct sell of the Tote, but is excluded from the Levy debate because his wife is a member of the Jockey Club. Guess who's in charge? Jeremy Hunt, who would probably, like the bookmakers, prefer the levy scrapped, and has possibly already lined up a mate to buy the Tote, if his recent reputation is anything to go by.

If, like me, you have never followed racing or the betting industry, you'll be confused. Anyone who knows and wants to make the above clearer, please do. But with all these vested interests going on and arguments (some moral) centred around tradition & heritage versus 'a modern gambling experience', and state ownership and subsidy versus pure market forces, it is hardly surprising the Labour government made such an enormous cock-up of the 2005 Gambling Act...

During that time, you probably couldn't move in Westminster for betting industry lobbyists. No doubt it is similar now, only more competitive...A box at the races for you and your banking mates, free booze and direct line to tax free exchange betting, anyone?

Whatever, it's beyond ironic that New Labour's complete and utter fumbling of the 2005 Gambling Act has led to New Labour's flagship boroughs suffering the most.

Down on the street

North of the river, in Hackney alone there are nearly 70 betting shops, three times the national average. There were 2,095 gambling licenses in operation in 33 boroughs in 2009, up from 1,721 in 2003 (Gambling Commission and Home Office).

Hackney Mayor Jules Pipe describes betting shops as "sucking the money out of people's pockets".

In September 2010 he joined Ken Livingstone and Tottenham MP David Lammy in a press call at a new Paddy Power in Mare Street, where there are already 9 bookies. Livingstone said:

"We are calling on the government to give local communities a greater say over their high streets...there should be a separate planning class for betting shops to give councils and residents the power to determine their location and overall numbers."

Lammy said, "It is surely wrong that (councils) cannot deny an application for a betting shop on the basis of the number already open in the area."

The Hackney News reported that the Association of British Bookmakers (ABB) has said it would be co-operating with a review announced by Haringey council into the proliferation of high-street betting shops, but denied that new legislation was needed, since under the current Act, local councils can refuse licenses where they can show 'good and sustainable reasons'.

Local campaigners in Deptford (apolitical local residents horrified by the developments on their doorsteps) who went to the trouble of objecting for "good and sustainable reasons" (including planning objections under conservation rules that seem to hold even less weight), to Paddy Power taking over both the Deptford Arms and the John Evelyn pubs within a 4 month period know this is simply not true.

The Local Government Association argues that lax licensing of gambling premises in deprived areas simply increases poverty. "We are a bit concerned...they're taking advantage of people's desperations and concerns at such a difficult time." (Hackney News) Also see the LGA website.

Hackney's MP Diane Abbott has long been campaigning about the clustering of betting shops. She has talked about it on the telly, and before she got drawn into the Labour leadership campaign, as a back bencher she was putting in EDMs (Early Day Motions) to Parliament in an attempt to change the 2005 Gambling Act. 

Time for Lewisham to Speak Out

In a response to our email to Diane Abbott about what is happening in Deptford, her office furnished us with the response she received from John Penrose in October 2010. In the letter, Penrose says there are powers which local authorities can implement to make it harder for certain shops to open under Town & Country Planning legislation. "There are wider issues at play that should be dealt with through the Local Development Framework and Town Centre Management strategies, rather than being addressed by gambling specific legislation."

Unless there is something mysteriously masonic in John Penrose's words that councillors and bureaucrats in boroughs all over the country have missed to the detriment of their communities (that'll be Tory wards that aren't blighted), it needs to be pointed out to John Penrose MP that when a local authority turns down licensing or planning applications to ambitious new betting chains it is inevitable that said betting chains, Paddy Power, Betfred etc, WON'T BE HAPPY until they have BANKRUPTED every local authority in the UK...
in order to maintain and achieve even greater hold over their competitors in our high streets, whilst all along singing merrily that they have only provided us with what we wanted all along. 

Penrose went on to tell Diane Abbott that he's not convinced the law needs changing because he hasn't heard similar complaints from around the country – whilst his government cuts local authority funding to ribbons. Whatever your opinions on how your council makes its cuts, you will probably agree you'd rather keep a library open than fund a hopeless legal case against a wealthy offshore betting chain.

Penrose probably doesn't know either that bookmakers are the second most likely target for armed robbery (after shops and before post offices and banks), and doesn't have to walk down a street where punters hang outside betting shops all day drinking, drug dealing, stealing from the adjacent shops and shoppers, and begging. 

John Penrose's response to Diane Abbott is a WAKE UP call to our powers-that-be in Lewisham (including the Borough Chief of Police) to speak up in support of Deptford shopkeepers, street traders and residents, and join our friends north of the river in a nationwide campaign to change the law.

-0-

At the time of writing, we have had no response to our emails to Joan Ruddock. We visited her surgery at The Albany yesterday afternoon and picked up ticket number 26. There were already 15 people waiting, and ticket number 16 was called at 5.45pm, 15 minutes before her session was to close. We sincerely hope she is able to help those people, some of whom had been waiting since 3pm....

However, we hope Deptford can count on her support in the future. She's always been a jolly good Chair.

Read how to object here. (Objections now closed)

Further update: Some background reading on the local situation...
http://deptforddame.blogspot.com/2010/10/paddy-power-licence-granted.html
http://deptforddame.blogspot.com/2010/10/john-evelyn-pub-another-paddy-power.html
http://deptforddame.blogspot.com/2010/05/deptford-arms-planning-applications.html
http://deptforddame.blogspot.com/2010/03/deptford-armspaddy-power.html

New Cross assembly

''Your local assembly, your say.''

This will be held on Wednesday 21 July 2010 from 7:30 - 9:30pm at Deptford Green School, Amersham Vale, New Cross, SE14 2LQ. (refreshments from 7:15pm). Here's the inside of the leaflet that arrived in an estate letter box.