Battle over future of Southwark's Aylesbury Estate heads to High Court

How the estate would look if the plans were to go ahead

The battle over the fate of eight Aylesbury Estate homeowners is heading for the High Court after the Government blocked a compulsory purchase order on their flats.

Southwark council said it would seek a judicial review of the Communities Secretary’s decision to throw out the CPO, which would have allowed it to buy their homes and start demolition.

Council leader Peter John said minister Sajid Javid’s decision was based on a key misunderstanding of its policy on compensating property owners.

He said: “We can either fight this decision or scrap our plans to regenerate the Aylesbury Estate, leaving the hopes and dreams of thousands of local people in tatters. I’m not willing to do that, which is why we will take court action if necessary to try to overturn this bizarre decision.”

The council wants to proceed with a £1.5 billion regeneration of the south London estate, which was built in the Sixties and Seventies. But it has not been able to agree compensation terms with the eight homeowners on the first part of the estate earmarked for demolition and was hoping to use the CPO to force them out.

In his decision this week, Mr Javid agreed with a planning inspector that the residents’ rights would be breached because proposed compensation terms would not allow them to buy a similar property in the same area.

But Mr John responded: “Of course the human rights of our residents are important, which is why each of the remaining resident leaseholders has been offered a brand new home in the same area, rent-free, and with a shared equity arrangement which protects the money they’ve saved and invested. I’m afraid that we can’t just keep offering them more and more taxpayers’ money.”

One of the residents, Victoria Bryden, who bought her two-bedroom flat in 2005, said: “We had countless meetings with the council and they made us many promises they had no intention of keeping. Under the CPO I was offered £130,000, while one-bedrooms in the new buildings across the road cost £420,000 and two-bedrooms are over £600,000... we are not going anywhere unless they pay us a fair price for our homes.”

But a resident on another part of the estate, Jean Bartlett, said: “Lots of residents on Aylesbury are very disappointed with the outcome.

“There are people across the estate who are desperately waiting to move out and see things happen and we are happy the council is not giving up on the Aylesbury.”

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