Community action saves the estate – again

The Lissenden Gardens’ community battles didn’t end when Camden Council bought the estate. One year into council ownership, the community faced another threat to its survival.

The estate was seriously run down, with dry rot, and kitchens, bathrooms, wiring and pipework all needing to be replaced. The council proposed that residents would move out for a four-year comprehensive programme work. The staircases with four-bedroom flats would be remodelled to provide smaller flats, lifts installed and a communal heating system provided. A show flat was prepared to demonstrate what the modernised flats would look like.

Residents were horrified. The plans would destroy the community, as tenants who are moved out often don’t move back, and change the character of the buildings. The tenants’ association went back into action – protest, publicity, an independent architect’s report – and managed to persuade the council to drop the plans. Instead a joint working party of council members, officers and tenants’ association reps oversaw the work. Residents were able to stay in their flats and had far more choice than councils normally allowed in how their flats were modernised. Most of the architectural features were retained. 

Margaret Thatcher’s introduction of the right to buy in 1980 was to have a far-reaching impact on Lissenden Gardens. The first result was a lot of heart searching as residents, many of whom were very left wing, struggled to reconcile their political opposition to a policy that would reduce the amount of council housing with their personal desire for security and an asset to pass to their children. About half the flats were eventually sold before price rises and reductions in discount made it almost impossible for tenants to buy. Some of the right to buy flats are now rented out privately, further increasing the social diversity of the estate..  

To Paradise by Way of Gospel Oak: a mansion flat estate and the forces that shaped it by Rosalind Bayley, is published by Camden History Society and is on sale at The Owl Bookshop or from the author and available at Swiss Cottage Library and the British Library.