Monthly Archives: April 2026

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Old Kent Road march demands council housing and protection for local communities

We supported around 200 Housing and community activists from a range of groups including SHAPE Coalition and Save Old Kent Road. We marched down The Old Kent Road 25 April 2026. The area is under threat from overdevelopment and the erasure of local traders – including many from the global majority – and vital cultural spaces.

We want 100% council housing on council land, 50% council housing on private land. The Old Kent Road Area Action Plan does not prioritise council housing or local communities. It is a developers’ charter.

Speakers on the demonstration included Housing Action Southwark and Lambeth, PCS SELLS Branch, Latin Elephant, Stand up to Racism, Aylesham Community Action and Southwark Acorn.

Local people are calling for:
🔥Homes for people not for profit
🔥Council housing, not luxury flats
🔥Stop overdevelopment
🔥Protect local traders and cultural spaces

YouTube video of Save OKR demonstration (2.4 min)

Follow SHAPE COALITION on Instagram

The next protest will be outside Southwark Council’s offices:

SHAPE Morning protest outside start of Old Kent Road Area Action Plan Examination in Public
Tuesday 9 June, 9am to 10am @ Council Offices, 160 Tooley St, SE1 2TZ
The Examination in Public is where the Council brings their plan to the Planning Inspector who will approve or reject it. Supporters of the Plan and objectors will have a chance to speak. We will be outside in support of objectors to show the Council that the community won’t accept more social cleansing.
Please check details before you come in case of any changes.
https://www.ayleshamcommunityaction.co.uk/SHAPE

Credit: pics and video https://www.instagram.com/davgilz/

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Southwark housing and planning activists to demonstrate on Sat 25 April

Stop Social cleansing!
Demonstration Saturday 25 April
March down Old Kent Road!
Assemble 12pm, Michael Faraday Memorial (opp. Elephant & Castle Tube, Northern Line entrance)

Save Old Kent Road and SHAPE Coalition helped to organise the planning bloc on the successful National Housing Demonstration on 18 April and they are planning the Save Old Kent Road demonstration on 25 April. Homes for All urges all housing and planning campaigners to join them. They are on the frontline of the developer-led destruction of communities, and they have a record of holding local politicians to account.

Bus down Old Kent Road
SHAPE and Save OKR hired an old London Bus to tour Old Kent Road demanding Southwark Council alter the Old Kent Road Area Action Plan and increase the amount of social rented housing and protect local businesses and traders. They are urging Councillors to support changes to benefit local people before the plan goes to Examination in Public in June.

The current plan amounts to social cleansing – with 20,000 new homes, but only 5,000 social rented, maximum. The second half of the 20,000 homes is dependent on the Bakerloo Line Extension, but the funding for that is not yet secured. There is no commitment on the number of new council homes and a dozen towers of over 20 storeys are going to be mostly not affordable, with an unlimited amount of student housing.

Campaigners are also concerned about the lack of protection for well-loved cultural spaces and the removal of industrial land and traders – to be replaced by flats.

The plan could end up pushing more working-class people out of the area.

Save Old Kent Road said:
“In 2021, Southwark Council themselves found that 93% of people in Southwark require either social or affordable housing. Since then, things have only got worse. There are now over 22,000 households on Southwark Council’s social housing waiting list and over 10,000 people in Southwark Council temporary accommodation.
The need for genuinely affordable council housing around the Old Kent Road is extreme, but all Southwark Council have done is hand over a cheque to developers and asked them to fill in the number.
The Old Kent Road ward is the most ethnically diverse in Southwark. Instead of investing into the health of our communities, Southwark Council wants to force us out and bring in full-scale gentrification.”

SHAPE Coalition said:
We believe Southwark Council can do better. It is time to start challenging the rule of developers, as they were forced to do with the Aylesham Centre Peckham planning application, which they refused because it only proposed 12% so-called affordable housing. We have to stand together against overdevelopment of homes local people can’t afford. We are demanding homes for people, not for profit, and protection for vital local traders and cultural spaces.”

Joint demands include:
• Homes for people not for profit
• Council housing, not luxury flats
• Stop overdevelopment
• Protect local traders and cultural spaces

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Movement demonstrates unity on national housing march

Thousands marched in Central London for council housing and rent controls

The National Housing Demonstration in Central London on 18 April showed the potential to unite the many housing campaigns to demand real solutions to the housing and planning emergency. Saturday’s demonstration was biggest unity demo since people came together on the Kill the Housing Bill demo in 2016.

Homes for All was proud to be part of the organising, alongside the London Renters Union in the coalition under the Homes for Us banner.

The demo was backed by over 80 other tenants’ unions, trade unions and grassroots campaigns. There were five coaches from cities across the country and activists travelled from as far away as Newcastle and Portsmouth.

Supporters of Homes for All demanded a massive programme of council housing – including taking over empty homes – and the Planning Bloc organised by SHAPE Coalition demanded “Planning for People, Not for Profit”.

“I’m here today because as a mother, grandmother and working class person who’s been fortunate enough to benefit from council housing, I fear there won’t be affordable housing for future generations.” Molly, Homes for All organiser

Tanya from SHAPE Coalition urged people to attend the demonstration down the Old Kent Road on Saturday 25 April.

“We are facing a housing emergency and instead of making the planning system work for ordinary people, the Labour government and the Mayor of London are handing more power and public money to developers. The Mayor of London has just approved the giant Canada Water development – where the developer British Land reduced the amount of affordable housing from 35% to 3%. That’s what happens when politicians decide to work within the system, instead of challenging the system.”

Media round-up

Standard article Housing a basic need, not an investment vehicle – Zarah Sultana

Just Space article NATIONAL HOUSING DEMONSTRATION

Socialist Worker article National Housing Demo calls for rent controls and council housing

Politics Joe video Thousands of renters protest their landlords