Around 250 supporters joined the Housing Protest on Sept 9 to hear from 14 different housing campaigns and 6 MP’s speaking in support of rent freezes and investment in council housing as the only long term solution to the housing emergency. The scale of the housing crisis was revealed by the breadth of the differing campaigns. Many contributions echoed the need for building a grassroots housing coalition and to keep on organising.
Speakers included: John McDonnell MP, Streets Kitchen, Chris Hinchliff MP, Jeremy Corbyn MP, Save Brick Lane, Campaign Against Climate Change, St. James Tenants Association, Labour Campaign for Council Housing, Refurbish Don’t Demolish, SHAPE/Homes for All, Fuel Poverty Action, London Renters Union, Housing Action Southwark & Lambeth, Greater Manchester Tenants Union, Grenfell Activist/HfA & SuTR, Ealing Housing Co-op, Green MP, Hannah Spencer, ACORN, Bell Ribeiro – Addy MP, Nadia Whittome MP.
The Aylesham Centre planning application was REFUSED!
Berkeley Group failed to get their gentrification scheme through. In a David and Goliath struggle the people of Peckham first pressured Southwark Council to refuse the scheme, then took the fight to the Planning Inspector and won.
Homes for All was proud to support the SHAPE campaign from the start.
The main reason for victory?
Unity, organised and demonstrated – repeatedly – on a mass scale. Six years of sustained pressure by ACA and SHAPE Coalition set up in 2024 to take the fight to the streets.
A demonstration of 600 in 2025, public meetings, benefit gigs, protests, 5,000 objections, a colossal fundraising effort. A campaign capturing the support of 21 Southwark organisations and inspiring many others.
The fundraise meant the campaign could pay for an excellent barrister and ACA was granted “Rule 6” status, meaning they could intervene effectively in the Inquiry.
Unite and fight, always.
The refusal The biggest issue for local people was the insulting offer of 12% so-called affordable housing (no council housing on the table at all btw). But there were so many other things wrong with the proposed development that the Inspector wouldn’t have approved it even if the amount of affordable housing had been 35%.
Here’s some of the things the inspector said about the scheme: “it would rise cliff-like in the townscape” “It would tower over its setting” “an unduly forceful presence on the street scene” “The blocks would be out of scale, visually intrusive” “overly domineering”
And so on…
This massive overdevelopment was disrespectful to the people of Peckham, and our local traders and environment. It was not right for Peckham. It put profit before people.
Developer’s next move? Berkeley Group say they will look at the decision carefully to plan their next steps. They may try to get the decision overturned by a “288 challenge” (similar to a judicial review) or of course, they good re-submit a planning application. Painting themselves as the victims of the piece, they recognise the decision has repercussions elsewhere and are claiming developers will stop ‘investing’ in London now.
Telegraph article Legal row looms after 800 new London homes blocked Southwark News article Aylesham Centre redevelopment rejected – it would have changed Peckham’s skyline forever and given 12 per cent affordable housing Urban Activist article How Local People Prevailed Over a Major Developer in London – in Six Questions
Whatever happens next, SHAPE Coalition will be ready to take up the fight again for the Peckham, Southwark and working class communities everywhere.
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
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
We joined the Stand up to Racism counter demonstration 13 Dec 2025
Migrants didn’t cause the housing emergency!
We supported Stand up to Racism, Care for Calais and church groups to oppose the ‘choir service’ organised by Tommy Robinson. We are appalled that he and his far right supporters attempted to hijack Christmas to spread their message of hate.
We loved the moving and inspiring songs by Billy Bragg – especially the new one channelling Woody Guthrie.
On 1 November Homes for All hosted a working group to help build a national housing and planning demonstration in March 2026.
The demonstration has been called in partnership with London Renters Union and Homes for Us. At the Homes for All meeting 16 delegate/s representing 14 groups agreed to maintain a working group as an adjunct the main steering group.
We believe this will contribute to building the demo on wider demands including council housing and planning for communities, the environment and people, which the above groups/unions also represent and support.
Southwark Council rejects Aylesham Centre proposal following SHAPE Anti-Berkeley Party, 15 July
PECKHAM SAID NO!
Up to 50 people came to the Anti-Berkeley Party followed by a packed out planning committee meeting which went on for more than 5 hours.
💥Decision on Aylesham Centre site – REFUSED ⭐️Planning committee refused the application with three reasons – Heritage, affordable housing, retail space. The business relocation strategy is to return to committee if the Inspector approves the scheme. ⭐️Developers have already gone to appeal to the Planning Inspector, inquiry scheduled for October. ⭐️ACA will be crowd funding for legal representation.
There is no doubt whatsoever that the application was refused because of the strength of the campaign – ACA has been fighting for five years. And in the last year the SHAPE Coalition has called three lobbies of the Council, a 100 strong public meeting two demonstrations – the one in March was 600 people – and a party!
👏Thank you everyone who made this result possible.
We prevented the Council from setting a dangerous precedent by approving a scheme with 12% ‘affordable’ housing.
But the system is stacked against us. We need a planning and housing revolution!
What is the next stage? Berkeley has appealed to the Planning Inspector, so the government will now decide what’s best for Peckham. The undemocratic planning regime has decreed that we can’t decide for ourselves. This is why we are fighting not just for Peckham, but for a revolution in housing and planning policy where people, not profit, come first.
Homes for People – Not for Profit! Housing is a human right! Stop the megadevelopments! ✅ 50% Council housing on private land ✅ 100% Council housing on council land
Housing and planning campaigners headed to the culture tent at Marxism 2025 on Sunday to discuss ‘why we need a housing and planning revolution’.
Over 80 people attended, with contributions from Just Space, Living Rent Scotland and ACORN. Another participant in the meeting raised how impressed they were with how H4A raised broader political issues in their campaigns such as anti-racism and asked for advice on how to get their campaign to do the same.
The meeting, hosted by Morag Gillie from Homes For All was an opportunity to consider the kind of change we need, and how to fight for it. Morag said “There were too many people waiting to speak and as usual we ran out of time.” After the meeting people formed two long queues for getting involved and taking away leaflets. 14 people signed up to the H4A WhatsApp group and we ran out of leaflets on both tables!
Destructive
Eileen Conn from Peckham Vision spoke about her personal story as a grassroots campaigner for 50 years with much of it about neighbourhood planning issues. She gave a snapshot of the current 5-year campaign against Berkeley’s plans for the overdevelopment of the Aylesham site in Rye Lane which locals view as destructive to Peckham as a place, to the town centre and its diverse vibrant local economy.
“This phenomenon is happening all over London and other places across the country and why we need to bring grassroots housing campaigners together with planning campaigners. This is to mobilise local people everywhere onto the streets for a total change in the national housing policies and planning policies” Eileen Conn, Peckham Vision
Struggles
Paul Burnham from Defend Council Housing spoke about UK housing policy since 1914, pointing out how struggles from below had driven high priority council house building campaigns in the past. There had also been other successes from campaigning over a long series of issues and struggles. Paul pointed out that Angela Rayner’s latest promise of £39 billion of social and affordable housebuilding, including 180,000 social rent homes over ten years, must be examined alongside the government’s tenure-blind target for 1.5 million new homes over five years.
“When all these schemes are up and running, there would be 300,000 new homes a year, of which 18,000, that is, only 6%, would be at social rent. That is not going to cut it.” Paul Burnham, Defend Council Housing
Developers
Tanya Murat from SHAPE Coalition said solving the housing emergency would mean a new generation of council housing – for all, wherever you were born. She outlined the need to struggle on many fronts. We have to call for the requisitioning of empty homes; we must break the power of landlords and fight for a nationally enforced system of rent control now. The government must end the building safety scandal, and we need Justice for Grenfell. We have to stand up to developers.We must demand – Refurbish don’t demolish. We have to support campaigners who are fighting to stop their councils demolishing structurally sound housing.
“Expecting developers to solve the housing emergency is like expecting fossil fuel companies to solve the climate emergency” Tanya Murat, SHAPE (Southwark Housing and Planning Emergency)
Homes for All is hosting a housing and planning meeting at Marxism Festival 2025.
When? 2pm, Sunday 6 July
Where? Marxism Festival, Culture Tent, Shoreditch, London
With Morag Gillie (Chair), Homes4All and speakers
Eileen Conn, Peckham Vision and community planning campaigner
Tanya Murat, Homes4All and SHAPE Coalition
Paul Burnham, Defend Council Housing
The panel will discuss the political decisions that led to the transformation of housing provision and planning policy, how we build a grassroots coalition and why we need to fight for council housing and overturn the current developer-led system.
Marxism Festival is happening between Thursday 3 July and Sunday 6 July.
The Homes for All Housing and Planning Bloc on the Peoples Assembly demo against austerity was a real pleasure to support.
Homes for All, supported by Defend Council Housing, SHAPE, SHAC and many others had fantastic Housing and Planning Bloc, and we even got to speak on the platform to promote the movement’s demands for council housing and a challenge to the rule of developers. We called for a revolution in housing and planning. High energy all the way! More than 60 housing and planning campaigners joined us. We brought the noise all the way from Portland Place to Whitehall.
We have a Housing and Planning bloc on the People’s Assembly demo, 7 June.
We are seeking support both from housing campaigns, and planning campaigns. We know the housing emergency will not be solved without a massive overhaul in planning policy. Without doubt the national and local planning regime has turned into a developers’ charter, putting ‘viability’ (read ‘developer profit’) at the centre, and reducing the role of council housing to a bit part. This has to change if we are to get the homes people desperately need.
Of course the only solution to the housing emergency is for the government to build or acquire council housing on a mass scale, and that requires proper funding. We want anyone who agrees with us to join us on 7 June!
Are you a planner?
Are you a housing officer?
Are you active in the planning world?
Are you part of the housing movement?
The Homes 4 All Housing and planning bloc is for you! Get in touch if you want to help build it! If you want your logo on the graphic, please email Homes for All.
