Homes for All hosted campaigners to discuss “housing and planning revolution”

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)

#EndOurCladdingScandal – Time to fight for fire safety

Homes for All is supporting the protests at developers showrooms on 5th June. The protests are aimed at forcing developers and the government to take responsibility for fire safety measures following the Grenfell disaster.

There are an estimated 11 million people living in unsafe homes but the government, landlords and developers response has been totally inadequate. In many cases leaseholders are being forced to pay thousands of pounds for remediation – they can’t afford to pay! Meanwhile people are suffering a mental health crises whilst developers profits boom.

Image from https://endourcladdingscandal.org/

Join the Developer Showroom Protests on Saturday 5th June

Now residents are coming together to hit the developers where it hurts by targeting their future sales.
On 5th June there will be a national wave of protests outside new home sales offices, as we demand that developers cover the costs to fix the #BuildingSafetyCrisis.

Further details here: New Homes Showroom Protest – National Day of Local Action Facebook event page

https://www.facebook.com/events/1617993971730522

Where are protests happening? Check out this map!

https://claddingscandalmap.co.uk/

Can’t get to a protest? Watch and interact with the ONLINE RALLY!

Online Rally FB Event Page https://www.facebook.com/events/523904762123912?ref=newsfeed

#EndOurCladdingScandal

Showroom Protests online rally
12pm -1pm
Saturday 5th June

*Matt Wrack, General Secretary, Fire Brigades Union
*Karim Mussilhy, Grenfell United
*Jenni Garrett, End Our Cladding Scandal
*Sarah Rennie, Cladding Leaseholder Disability Action Group (CLADDAG)
*Chair: Tanya Murat, Homes for All

Live streams from protests in…

  • Southend (Weston Homes)
  • Manchester (Bellway)
  • Canary Wharf (Ballymore)
  • Birmingham (City Centre)
  • Chipping Barnet (Countryside)
  • West Ham (Barratt Homes)
  • Brighton (Barratt Homes)
  • Clapton (Countryside)
  • Manchester (Town Hall – Lendlease)

Join the Developer Protest Action Group to find out where protests are happening and chat to other campaigners

https://www.facebook.com/groups/developeractionuk/

SEE WHERE THE PROTESTS ARE HAPPENING ON 5TH JUNE BY CLICKING ON THIS CLADDING SCANDAL MAP

https://claddingscandalmap.co.uk/

Fill in this google form if you want to help with the protests on 5th June

https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSceRf50ePyvRhhzHh00GCX5iGqwKYoNVdyoftOzeLRtJEL6ew/viewform