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.
đĽDecision on Aylesham Centre site – REFUSED âď¸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. âď¸Developers have already gone to appeal to the Planning Inspector, inquiry scheduled for October. âď¸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!
đThank you everyone who made this result possible.Â
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 whatâs best for Peckham. The undemocratic planning regime has decreed that we canât 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! â 50% Council housing on private land â 100% Council housing on council land
Housing and planning campaigners headed to the culture tent at Marxism 2025 on Sunday to discuss âwhy we need a housing and planning revolutionâ.
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 âThere were too many people waiting to speak and as usual we ran out of time.â 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 Berkeleyâs 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.
âThis 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 policiesâ 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 Raynerâs latest promise of ÂŁ39 billion of social and affordable housebuilding, including 180,000 social rent homes over ten years, must be examined alongside the governmentâs 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 â 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 donât demolish. We have to support campaigners who are fighting to stop their councils demolishing structurally sound housing.
âExpecting developers to solve the housing emergency is like expecting fossil fuel companies to solve the climate emergencyâ Tanya Murat, SHAPE (Southwark Housing and Planning Emergency)
Homes for All joined the SHAPE demonstration on 1 March 2025
Public meeting in Peckham on 15 May calls for developments with 50% council housing
Campaigners in Southwark are calling on the housing movement to support their public meeting on 15 May and their ‘Peckham Takeover on 31 May.
This follows their 600-strong demonstration in March against overdevelopment and for council housing. Now SHAPE are pledged to take over the centre of Peckham at the end of May.
Developer Berkeley Homes has put in an appeal to the Planning Inspector. Their Aylesham Centre proposal was waiting for local planning approval, but the appeal (on the grounds of ‘non-determination’) means the proposal will be decided by the Secretary of State or the Planning Inspector, rather than the local planning committee.
Campaigners were demanding refusal from the committee, which will still take place in June. Southwark Housing and Planning Emergency (SHAPE) was disappointed that local people have been bypassed by the developer and has pledged to fight on. Southwark Defend Council Housing described the developer’s move as “Arrogant, anti-democratic and aggressive.”
Arrogant, anti-democratic and aggressive
Southwark DCH
The public meeting will hear from Zoe Garbett Green AM, Andreea Vasilcin, Aylesham Community Action, Neil Tasker, Southwark UNITE and Carmen and Michael, SE16 No Price on Culture with Councillor David Parton, Rye Lane Ward.
All three Labour Councillors in the ward affected by the scheme have urged residents to object to it, and Peckham MP Miatta Fahnbulleh stated she would stand with the community against the proposal if the amount of affordable housing remained at 12%.
The proposal by Berkeley Homes promises just 12% âaffordableâ housing in a development that residents say is not meant for them. Sixteen tall towers, up to 20 storeys high, with little consideration for the heritage of the area, local independent traders or the environment.
SHAPE Public Meeting
Thursday 15 May, 7pm
Rye Lane Chapel, 59A, Rye Lane, SE15 5EX
Itâs The People vs The Developers! Peckham takeover!
Saturday 31 May, Assemble 1pm
Peckham Square SE15 5RS
For a demo through Peckham ending at Peckham Square for a happening with speeches and entertainment
SHAPE said:
âWe are living through a housing emergency. Despite huge developments across the borough, we have more people on the council housing waiting list than we had twenty years ago. Berkeley Homes are only offering an insulting 12% âaffordableâ housing on the new Aylesham Centre â thatâs just 77 âaffordableâ homes out of nearly nine hundred and they might not even be social rent!â
We are also losing valuable small businesses and cultural amenities. We have already seen the damage done to independent traders at the Elephant and Castle and the Borough Triangle scheme puts the future of the traders at Mercato market into doubt. PlushSE16 was a great cultural and social hub in Rotherhithe, but itâs been lost too, to make way for a 48-storey tower with only 25% social rented homes.â
It’s time to end developments which take so much from us, and donât even give us homes we can afford to live in.â
Siobhan McCarthy, Aylesham Community Action (ACA), said
âThe displacement of local communities and traders, huge mega developments placed in an area with no thought towards what exists already, creating a them and us feel to the community – this is all too high a price to pay (especially in Peckham with the planned Aylesham development). And for what? A disgustingly low amount of social housing, and ‘affordable housing’, and huge amount of developer profit. We need to demand change and now.’
Tanya Murat, Southwark Defend Council Housing (SDCH), said
âNow is the time for a different kind of housing policy. The market cannot deliver the homes we need, only council housing can do that. We have to send a message to this government, and to Southwark Council, that we wonât accept any more crumbs off the table. Stop submitting to the rule of developers. Their profits are not more important than peopleâs homesâ.
Jerry Flynn, 35% Campaign, said:
âThe Aylesham is right at the heart of Peckham and its redevelopment will shape the whole area for decades to come. Southwark Council must make it clear to Berkeley Homes that its derisory 12% so called affordable housing offer will be rejected. Southwark has a target of 50% affordable housing and that is what should from Berkeley Homes. This should be all council housing if we are ever to reduce our huge council housing waiting list.â
SHAPEâs demands
SHAPEâs main demands are an end to overdevelopment and more council housing â 50% for developments on private land and 100% on council land. It also wants an end to estate demolition and the sale of council homes and an end to the displacement of local traders for developments of unaffordable housing.
SHAPE (Southwark Housing And Planning Emergency) is an umbrella group of housing campaigns and activists from across Southwark. SHAPE is supported by Southwark Defend Council Housing, Aylesham Community Action, Save Borough Triangle, Peckham Vision, Latin Elephant, Up the Elephant, 35% Campaign, Yes to Fair Redevelopment, Southwark Notes , Fight for Aylesbury, PlushSE16 No Price on Culture, Glengall Wharf Garden, Southwark TUC, Housing Action Southwark and Lambeth and Southwark Group of Tenants Organisation, Southwark GMB, Southwark UNITE, PCS SELLS Branch.
Homes for All heard from the SHAPE Coalition on Saturday. They are planning a demonstration on 1 March and are seeking support from housing campaigners in the capital and further afield. SHAPE say the developments approved and planned in Southwark, and Peckham in particular, have major implications for the housing crisis elsewhere.
Berkeley Homes is proposing just 12% so-called affordable housing on the Aylesham Centre Peckham development – a proposal that includes 16 massive buildings, up to 20 storeys high in the centre of Peckham’s shopping street and beyond. There will be 877 new homes but only 77 will be “affordable”. If this development is approved, either by the Council or on appeal, this will send a message to developers everywhere – ‘Build whatever you like, your profits come first‘ This is a national issue and it requires a radical challenge to this government.
URGENT!!! Aylesham Community Action are calling a demo to oppose the Aylesham Centre development – 3pm, Saturday 8 February, Peckham Square.
We regard this offer as a deep insult to the people of Peckham and Southwark…we… seek to defeat this proposal and others, like Borough Triangle, which aim to increase the number of luxury flats and displace the local traders, much like the already approved development at Elephant and Castle Shopping Centre… We do not believe developer profits should be prioritised. Thatâs why our slogan is âStop overdevelopment, homes for people, not for profitâ.
From SHAPE Open Letter to Rye Lane Councillors, 13 January 2025
This is a call-out to all housing groups, trade unionists and people who are affected by the lack of genuinely affordable housing. We have to fight for council housing. It is the only answer to the housing emergency, and we expect our political leaders to back us and get out of bed with the developers.
SHAPEâs demands
1. No to overdevelopment – Is it too high or too dense? NO! 2. 50% council housing on private land. 100% council housing on council land 3. No more fake consultations. We want genuine tenant, resident and local peoplesâ involvement in the plans 4. Stop unsafe and poorly built development 5. Stop the demolition and sell-off of council housing – Refurbishment not demolition 6. Requisition or acquire empty homes 7. Protect and improve our estates, community facilities and town centres 8. Employ direct labour – give workers the power to challenge unsafe building work 9. Act on the Climate Emergency now. No unsustainable building, no loss of green space 10. Stop displacement of traders for unaffordable housing
If you agree, come to the demos, promote and support – and think about setting up a Housing and Planning Coalition in your own area.
Siobhan McCarthy, Aylesham Community Action said:
Private developers have come to Southwark and destroyed communities in order to make profit, without providing anywhere near enough social housing. We are fighting this battle right now in Peckham.
Tanya Murat, Southwark Defend Council Housing said
Emergency action is required. Instead of letting developers continue to get away with destroying council housing and building more and more luxury flats, Southwark Council should refuse unsustainable luxury developments, fight for council housing and protect our local communities.
