(
Where are the Swans?
“Where are the swans? There are only a few left, perhaps three or four. Did they go by themselves or were they forced to leave as well?” asked the mother and Lesnes resident rhetorically.
There is a lake, man-made and built in the 1960s. It featured in Stanley Kubrick’s Clockwork Orange and Channel 4’s Misfits. It is mentioned in a book, The Town of Tomorrow. It used to have swans, many of them, but most seemed to have left. The lake is easy to visit – unless you are a resident of the adjacent Lesnes Estate, in which case Southmere Lake is in danger of becoming nothing more than a memory.
The Abbey, Marshes, and Munitions
The Lesnes Estate sits in the middle of a 1,000-acre parcel of land, which is just south of the river Thames. The area is on the eastern edges of London, is three miles long and has a deep history: it was mentioned in the 1086 Domesday Book and had an Abbey dating back to 1178. The Abbey didn’t attract enough inmates to stave off closure in 1525 when Cardinal Wolsey ordered it closed, demolishing the monastic buildings in the process. Only the lodging quarters survived – they eventually became part of a farmhouse. There was a beauty to the place with its expansive flat marshes, delicate inlets, and gentle streams. Wildlife flourished, and distant horizons – where land met sky uninterrupted – left onlookers mesmerised.
But interruptions pursue this space and by the early 1900s the calmness and tranquillity were lost to the noise and pollution of munitions factories. Six decades later the factories fell silent, permanently shuttered.
The Thamesmead Riviera
The name was chosen in an open competition by Londoners: Thamesmead. It was needed to crown an ambitious plan that integrated a built environment, capable of housing 60,000 residents, with the natural features of the surrounding landscape. The Greater London Council, then the world’s largest local authority, had a bold and daring vision: to build a futuristic, first-of-its-kind estate. The scheme’s launch video boasted of an environment unlike anything before – modern terraced houses and giant twelve storey tower blocks built using functional modular concrete panels. Pedestrians would be transported around the estate via a series of elevated walkways which rose above streets and snaked in-between buildings. And there would be almost a dozen lakes, ponds and reservoirs and a handful of mini waterways. For Britain, the design was revolutionary. In 1968 the first resident moved in.
Lesnes Estate
The Lesnes Estate, made up of about 600 homes, is in the middle of Thamesmead, sandwiched between Southmere Lake and Lesnes Abbey Woods. It comprises six tower blocks, which look out to the lake, and several rows of terraced town houses. Green plots and trees have been used to tone down the excessive use of concrete and act as a welcome tonic to city living. Some common areas of the estate look tired, as regular maintenance has been scaled back. Several buildings have been abandoned and are boarded up with metal sheets. In total some 200 properties are idle, deliberately sitting empty. Interruption is visiting this place once again.
“We agree with retro fitting and upgrading, but not demolition” said a fifteen-year resident of the Lesnes.
A decade ago, housing association and property developer Peabody became the de facto landlord of Thamesmead, and in turn Lesnes. Peabody are responsible for a whopping 104,000 homes and 220,000 residents – that’s equivalent to the population of Swansea. Having secured control of Thamesmead, they re-imagined its future. A thirty-year redevelopment plan followed, aimed at modernising the site and increasing its population to 100,000. While it’s light on detail, it worryingly referenced the demolition and new build of the Lesnes Estate.
In October 2022, Bexley Council gave outline planning permission to Peabody to demolish 816 current homes and replace them with 2,778 new ones. Tenants were notified they would be relocated, while owner-occupiers were informed their properties would be bought. Peabody was recasting Lesnes as a marketplace driven by speculation and profit. And like the Greater London Council, they too wanted to build the future – only their plans didn’t include many of Lesnes’ current residents.
Saturday 6th April
“There were about a hundred people here. There was a communal atmosphere and there was food. The police came, they checked-in with us. They left shortly afterwards,” explained a Lesnes campaigner.
A group of about a hundred residents and campaigners gathered last Saturday. They have one thing in common: their homes are at risk. They are everyday people. They commute to work, pay bills, do the washing up, and now they worry. They worry about where they will call home.
Tenants are worried about being forced to move and where they might end up, as they have no guarantee their alternative accommodation will be in the local area. Being uprooted from friends and family, potentially even from work is a very real possibility.
Owner-occupiers are worried they won’t be able to afford the new homes Peabody are planning to build, as they are rumoured to be priced at three times the current average. And if they refuse to sell, they will be at risk from being served a Compulsory Purchase Order.
In the afternoon about fifty of the group made their way to a house already emptied by Peabody, and occupied it. Access was easy as the building had already been gutted.
“The house had been gutted last year. Pipes, toilets, and sinks have all been removed. There is no electricity, no running water. It’s just an empty shell” said one campaigner.
Once in the house the group swept the floors clear of dirt and debris and laid a tarpaulin. Next some basic items of furniture were installed, along with a collection of sleeping bags. By dusk a dozen residents remained. Flashlights were used to illuminate the inside of the house as neighbours brought in cooked food. The group settled in for the night.
On Sunday the group held a series of teach-ins covering ethical corporate behaviour, public interest law and climate action for the built environment.
Peabody representatives visited the occupied house on Monday morning, asking the group to leave. It was amicable but ineffective – the residents remained in the house.
One resident told me “You feel you’re surplus to requirements. They [Peabody] are just moving us on.” There was silence as I was unsure how to respond. Feeling surplus in the place you call home must be incredibly destabilising, and I am left wondering how such emotions had found their way to this place.
Another resident, who bought her house with excitement and enthusiasm some seventeen years earlier, told me “It’s not good, not knowing where you are going to live tomorrow.” I imagined being forced to pack my home into boxes and cases, to be on standby for a journey to an unknown destination at an unknown time. It felt unnerving.
“I don’t want to be strong; I just want to be happy” she continued. She is seventy years old.
I visit Peabody’s website and it says everything I imagine it might: “Our aim is to provide great homes and create vibrant communities where people can flourish …. So we’re listening and working hard to improve things that aren’t quite right.”
If Peabody are listening, they’re not hearing.
Kubrick’s Clockwork Orange is a sci-fi story about a totalitarian system that drives a society to the point of despair and dystopia. It was filmed in 1971 and I am left wondering if locating part of it at Southmere Lake was a simple coincidence or a telling premonition.
The house at Lesnes remains occupied as I write, complete with tarpaulin, sleeping bags and resident campaigners.
©2024 Sul Nowroz – staff writer
