Demonstration against council sell-offs on Frampton Park Estate, E9.

DEMONSTRATE at Hackney Town Hall!

Say NO to selling off our land!

6 – 7 pm Wednesday the 23rd of July 2008

Hackney Council will have their full council meeting at 7pm on the 23rd of July, we will demonstrate from six outside. From 7pm we will attend the meeting. Please come whenever you can!

Hackney Town Hall is on Mare St near Hackney Central overground station.

Hackney Council plans to raise money by selling land from the borough's council estates: they call this Estates Plus. Right now they have been trying to convince the residents of Frampton Park estate (just off Mare st) that the sale of five sites on the estate will lead to improvements and help with overcrowding. This includes green space, play areas and garages used by the residents. The land will be sold to housing associations, who will build and then sell and rent the flats they build. Although there will be more below-market- rent housing, which is much needed, it will be achieved by cramming more people into an overcrowded area. And experience suggests this 'affordable' housing will not be affordable at all for the majority of people in need.

The housing tenure will be less secure than council housing, more expensive, and some of the housing proposed is private. There is no guarantee any of the housing will be allocated to tenants in the existing housing who are living in overcrowded conditions.

Most of the residents don't want the development; they don't want to lose their green space and play grounds, when there aren't enough places for kids to play already. One of the proposed buildings will be just yards from older peoples flats, on a piece of land kids use for football. The pensioners living in the flats would like to see a garden there, but instead they will have a multistory block towering over them.

Meanwhile across Hackney the council has sold off land that was and could be good alternative places for this social housing to be built. On Dalston Lane for instance, a row of Georgian houses with shop fronts were sold five years ago by the council to an off shore developer. They are protected and so could not be developed unless they were damaged and derelict. Since then the houses have been damaged by a series of fires, and some have been demolished. Those houses could be muti bedroom accommodation for Hackney's overcrowded tenants and homeless families. Instead Hackney will let those buildings rot till they are developed into luxury flats, while off the main streets the council estates are over developed. This is making low income people bear the brunt of the housing crisis, and taking facilities away from those who need it most.

We need your support on 23/07/08! Residents of other estates be aware that Hackney plans to use Estates Plus across the borough – help to stop the scheme on Frampton Park before it gets to your estate.

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