By Mary Pimm
Despite the vile weather on the evening of Thursday 8th February, tenants gathered at a packed housing meeting in Westminster. It brought together those living on various ex-crown estates which had been transferred some time ago to Peabody Trust. The agenda had a single item only: the fact that Peabody proposes to put our ‘Intermediate Rents’ up by a horrendous 9.4%.
At the end of the meeting, we voted unanimously to mount a campaign of resistance involving politicians and the media, plus anyone with clout who will support us.
Although Peabody has a surplus (really their profits) of £1.9 billion, they claim that they cannot afford to use the surplus to reduce rents because they would risk damaging their credit rating, and this in turn would reduce their ability to get cheap loans for construction. To put Peabody’s surplus in context, it represents more than 40% of the total surplus for the whole of the housing association sector.
Reckless Over-Borrowing
What has happened is that Peabody has recklessly over-borrowed in recent years, putting new builds and mergers, like the merger with Family Mosaic and more recently Catalyst, as their highest priority. This has come at the expense of their responsibilities and services to existing residents.
Peabody now expects tenants and residents to become cash cows to help them swell their coffers even more. We will not stand for it.
Tenants and residents are calling on supporters to express disgust at this totally unwarranted and unaffordable rent rise, which is more than twice the current rate of inflation.
We wrote to Peabody chief executive Ian McDermott and Acting Chair of the Peabody Board David Hardy requesting an urgent meeting. They agreed to this request but said they were too busy to come before April. Conveniently for them, this will be after the rents have gone up. It is not good enough.
A local MP, Meg Hillier, has already written to McDermott about this appalling rent hike, and we have made contact with Tom Copley, Deputy London Mayor for Housing, asking for his support. In a mayoral election year, he and Mayor Sadiq Khan may think it expedient to publicly demonstrate their support for renters fighting against exorbitant rent rises.
A Call to Action
If we fail to win this fight, what will happen is that our once stable community will be in a state of constant churn. Social cleansing will be rife as poorer tenants leave, turning our estate into a transit camp. It will attract wealthier incoming residents who only plan to rent for a few years while they save up to buy a house. This is already happening in Millbank, with rents in wealthy Westminster sky high – higher even than ours.
Peabody tenants and residents have had a long and proud history of protest to defend precious social housing
We are a determined group and will not sit quietly allowing this to happen.
If you are a tenant affected by intermediate rent rises, including from the former Family Mosaic and Catalyst housing associations, please contact Mary Pimm to get involved.
All supporters of the campaign are asked to write to Peabody chief Ian McDermott expressing their disgust at the proposal. Please also copy MPs for the area Meg Hillier and Rushanara Ali.
The campaigners are being supported by SHAC as part of the Unfair and Uncapped campaign which is resisting unfair rent rises and uncapped service charges.
11 February 2024
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keep up the good fight