Tenant launches legal challenge to Maiden Lane refurbishment
Top housing solicitors accuse council of failing to consider impact of scheme on disabled
Published: 26 August, 2010
by DAN CARRIER
A LEGAL shot has been fired across the bows of the Town Hall over plans to renovate the Maiden Lane estate.
Long-term tenant Bob Warren has employed a firm of housing solicitors to start a judicial review of the scheme. Mr Warren has made the move in anticipation of the council carrying through plans to make work on the 479 homes on the estate self-financing.
The estimated cost of the scheme is £18million and Gareth Mitchell of Pierce Glynn solicitors, representing Mr Warren, said this meant the council’s only realistic option was to sell off parts of the estate to pay for the works. He added that this would ultimately mean knocking down swathes of homes and rebuilding them at a much higher density to raise the funds.
The basis of the legal challenge, which is expected to reach the High Court in late autumn, is that the estate has a high proportion of people who are partially disabled and the impact of the work on their lives has not been properly assessed.
Mr Mitchell said: “Court proceedings have been commenced because throughout this process Camden has conspicuously failed to meet their duties under equalities legislation.
“In particular they admit they have failed to carry out an equality impact assessment [to comply with the Equality Act 2010] of their demolition proposals, even though it is clear their plans have reached an advanced stage and even though they accept that such an assessment is required.”
Housing chief Labour councillor Julian Fulbrook says no plans have been made to knock down any of the estate, and that while he wanted a speedy conclusion so work could get started, nothing would be done without the backing of the tenants.
He said: “We do not want to demolish anything.
“We want to see the estate regenerated, not knocked down.”
He added that the York Way entrance to the celebrated modernist social housing project was the key to finding further funding.
He said: “The York Way frontage is a great opportunity to have a self-financing regeneration project.” Cllr Fulbrook said light industrial units could make way for more homes whose sale would pay for renovations on the estate.
He added that with the neighbouring King’s Cross development being built, there was a limited opportunity to build higher blocks on the southern end of the site, which in turn would bring in some money for the rest of the estate, which suffers from damp and includes bedsits that are no longer suitable.
He said the only part of the estate that could conceivably be pulled down was a small block of eight bedsits by the York Way end which are in poor repair.
But even then, Cllr Fulbrook added, this would only be done with the agreement of the tenants living there.
He said: “This block could provide space for a new community centre but the rest of the estate is essentially safe.”