There are new plans to invest £100m to regenerate local housing estates
Most of this money will go to estates here in Latchmere – and we need your help to decide what changes are made
This news is a huge victory for all residents who have been calling on the council to give more support to Latchmere.
The public square outside Pennethorne House on the Winstanley Estate. Tony, Wendy and Simon have been campaigning for its renovation
Tony, Wendy and I stood for election on a promise to improve our estates, and now we want to make sure these exciting plans are shaped by local residents – not property developers.
Consultation will not be easy – to take one estate as an example: on the Winstanley there are no residents associations, no community room and half of the residents don’t have computers or internet at home.
But I know there are many Winstanley residents with ideas about how to build up the local community at the same time as re-building the estate:
- Gianpietro wants to launch a cookery class to keep his teenage son and his friends off the streets.
- Sheila wants to create a mentoring scheme to get local children into professional workplaces – and then make a video of their experience to help inspire other children.
- James would like a Residents Association to improve Arthur Newton House.
- Neset, appalled by how few local children go to university, wants to organise after-school tutoring in maths and culture.
I’m sure you have ideas of your own about how you would like your neighbourhood to develop. Please email shogg@wandsworth.gov.uk with your thoughts or questions, or come and see me at Battersea Library between 10am and 11.30am this Saturday (March 17).
- I don’t normally recommend that people read council reports, but the paper that proposes the Latchmere funding is well worth a look.)
- I have addressed four different Wandsworth Council committees on the need for investment in Latchmere’s estates, most recently to make the case to the Housing Committee that the land next to Sendall Court should be retained and used for a community ‘gateway’ building for the Winstanley Estate. In January, I spoke in full council about the need to invest in Latchmere’s estates. See the video here
I responded to the £100m investment plans in March’s council meeting:
Simon Hogg blogs 
I’m not exactly sure how much £100m can buy, but I really hope they focus on the housing itself rather than just making the outside pretty with trees and so on while desolate badly designed small cramped unventilated poured concrete flats with absolutely disgraceful facilities go ignored. I moved into this area (Winstanley) at the beginning of the year into a falling-apart flat that was in fact smaller than my room in residential care with no money and no way of making the conditions liveable. I had no choice in the matter in moving, I had to say yes and sign immediately or would be forcibly made homeless. (I’m 19, male, BRITISH in the traditional sense, have no family, etc.) After multiple suicide attempts I managed to eventually pull myself together but still with everything else still falling apart, i.e. 40cm of kitchen worksurface, no floor, bad tiling, etc. I am still struggling even now.
Okay perhaps I’m going on a bit but in summary, I really do hope they concentrate on the housing itself (take a leaf out of that newly built student housing tower’s book!) – even if it means rebuilding (of the lower 2 storey blocks such as near Fowler Close) or major renovation – rather than just ‘morning coffee club’ and a couple weekend activities for underprivileged youth!
I’m not being funny but stop moaning you miserable %$+!. You’re 19 years of age, I assume with no dependents yet you have been given a council flat in a wonderfully situated area within close proximity to some of the best green spaces in London. I grew up in Ganley Court and I loved it. There are single mothers in hostels with their children that would kill to be in your position yet you’re going off on a tangent about the current state of your flooring!!! Flooring, as you should know if you read your tenancy agreement is your responsibility. Get off your arse, get a job and sort yourself out!!!!!