Fenwick estate, Lambeth

431 homes are earmarked for demolition on Lambeth's Fenwick estate in Clapham.

Fenwick is one of the largest of Lambeth's five estates earmarked for demolition.

It was first earmarked for potential redevelopment in a December 2014 Cabinet decision.

Lambeth says that it is demolishing the estate because the cost of refurbishing the existing homes is £14,000 per dwelling higher than the average for its other estates and that the £9m overall cost of refurbishment is poor value for money:

The scheme was stalled in 2018, when the Council was forced to re-run its procurement process because of a conflict of interests.

The estate was initially awarded grant funding by the Mayor and exempted from his requirement to ballot residents. In September 2020, the Mayor announced that funding had been withdrawn from the scheme, but Lambeth vowed to proceed with demolition regardless using its own funds.

Lambeth now appear to be proceeding with the scheme entirely without mayoral funding, thereby avoiding the Mayor's requirement that residents are balloted on the demolition of their homes.

Whilst the decant and re-housing programme started in 2016, the estate remains fully occupied with void units being let out at full market rents or as temporary accommodation at LHA rates.

In November 2020, Lambeth approved a 'kick-start' phase involving the redevelopment of a small, decanted former supported housing block on the corner of the estate. You can read more about the application on Lambeth's planning portal here.

In early 2023, Lambeth Council announced that is was pausing the redevelopment of the Fenwick estate and two other estates (Central Hill and Cressingham Gardens) after a critical report recommended a ‘fundamental reset’ to the way it handles the long-running projects.

Links:

Fenwick Against Demolition campaign - (Twitter link)

Fenwick info page on Lambeth Council's website.