Mass demonstration rocks Crown Estate headquarters as Queen is told: 'Stop the sale'
Pics: Cumberland Market tenants Patricia Sheed, Gee Milani and Lucian Trainer make their feelings known at the Crown Estate's offices and Frank Dobson MP holds up heavily blacked out papers on the sale released under 'Freedom of Information' rules
Published: 25 March, 2010
EXCLUSIVE by DAN CARRIER
IT was billed as D-Day for tenants living on the Crown Estate – and they turned out in force at the West End headquarters of their landlords to hammer home the fact they don’t want their homes sold.
The Crown, who own the Cumberland Market estate in Regent’s Park, are looking for buyers of nearly 600 houses. But they have faced massive opposition to their plans, and at a rally on Tuesday, 200 tenants marked the end of a six-week consultation period by urging the Crown’s board to scrap the sell off.
They marched from the Regent Street office of their landlords to Buckingham Palace, were they handed a petition to entrance staff, calling for the Queen to intervene and block the sale.
Holborn and St Pancras MP Frank Dobson, who was joined by Lib Dem housing chief Chris Naylor, told the crowd that tenants were being made to pay for “the incompetence of property speculations by the Crown”.
He added that their landlords wanted to find new cash to plough into shopping malls they own in Regent Street.
Tenant Patricia Sheed, who has lived in
her Cumberland Market home since she was 11 years old, said: “I have been here for 66 years and it has always been a great place to live.
“The plans to sell our homes are simply disgusting. We feel like we’ve been conned. They have provided homes to so many people in the past, and should continue to do so in the future.”
Tenants will now have to wait until mid-April for the Crown’s board to make a final decision whether to push ahead with the scheme.
Tenants were only told of the sell-off at the end of January, but the Crown have been marketing the homes to property speculators, since January 2009.
A glimmer of hope emerged for tenants this week when new board minutes released under the Freedom of Information Act showed that part of the estate – the Windsor House block – has a special covenant placed on it. Called in planning law a “Section 33”, it can restrict the use of the land or property, or could refer to who is allowed to live on the estate.
However, the Crown do not have a record of it. The board minutes say: “Cumberland Market... appears to have a potentially restrictive user covenant... unfortunately this document is neither with our deeds nor with Camden’s records.”
Tenants hope it could be another tool to block the sale, as it could deter potential buyers.
Cumberland Estate Residents Association chairman Steve Smith said: “It is not clear what this covenant refers to, or what it means. But its very existence may put off potential buyers.”
And the vicar of St Anne’s Brookfield Parish in Highgate, Father Andrew Meldrum, has now added his support to the campaign. He said: “If this sell-off goes ahead, the estates will be commercialised. It will destroy communities.”