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.”

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% ‘affordable’ 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

It’s 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:

‘We 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% ‘affordable’ housing on the new Aylesham Centre – that’s just 77 ‘affordable’ homes out of nearly nine hundred and they might not even be social rent!’

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 it’s been lost too, to make way for a 48-storey tower with only 25% social rented homes.’

It’s time to end developments which take so much from us, and don’t even give us homes we can afford to live in.’

Siobhan McCarthy, Aylesham Community Action (ACA), said

‘The 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

‘Now 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 won’t accept any more crumbs off the table. Stop submitting to the rule of developers. Their profits are not more important than people’s homes’.

Jerry Flynn, 35% Campaign, said:

‘The 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.’

SHAPE’s demands

SHAPE’s main demands are an end to overdevelopment and more council housing – 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.