Leeds Federated Housing is a local housing association with 4,300 properties in Leeds, Wakefield and North Yorkshire. On 29 September 2022, they took ownership of the estate from Pemberstone!

We’ve heard for some time that Pemberstone was making a deal with a housing association that could only be completed when all short hold tenants had been evicted. Little information about the deal or the apparent purchasers was shared, so we had no idea whether it was true. All we knew was that – paradoxically – tenants had to leave the estate for anything to happen… bad or good.

Turns out there was a real housing association behind the scenes, and a deal was finally agreed! (Who knows how much Pemberstone made from the sale…!)

Leeds Federated Housing have issued the following press release to announce the purchase:

This is fantastic news for the 10 mineworker families with protected tenancies who have seen their neighbours disperse and the boarded-up houses crumble around them. Leeds Fed have committed to building their new homes first and to try and ensure they won’t have to move off the estate while the new homes are constructed.

Quite what this means for tenant families already forced out of their beloved homes, we don’t know as we have yet to get full details. But Leeds Fed are working with Cindy and John Readman to make sure our voices and needs are not overlooked!

Cross your fingers.

Although our historic homes will sadly still face demolition, there is now a spark of a hope that evicted families might at least be able to move back to a cherished estate with close friends and lots of memories.

Over the past few months, eviction notices and possession orders have finally torn this close-knit community apart. Some neighbours have managed to find insecure private rentals a few miles away so they can keep their local jobs and maintain contact with friends on the estate (but in the process of forced downsizing, they’ve had to give or throw away irreplaceable family belongings accumulated over a lifetime – and they’ve lost thousands of pounds in the process). Some neighbours couldn’t find anything suitable nearby and have moved hundreds of miles away to rid themselves of the bad memories of the last few years and start a new life elsewhere. Other residents have long-overstayed their eviction notices because there’s simply nothing available to home themselves, their children, and their pets.

There are also nearly a dozen households still living on Wordsworth Drive and Sugar Hill because they are the miners’ generation with protected tenancies. Pemberstone are duty bound to provide these residents with equivalent homes in the new development. Sadly, that duty doesn’t seem to extend to maintaining a safe environment while evictions and re-development are underway.

Vultures circling

We’ve reported previously on Pemberstone’s practice of boarding up the vacant properties – effectively placing a sign on the front of the house saying: “thieves and squatters welcome”. Multiple vacated houses have been broken into in the last few months, and whatever was left that had any value and was moveable (or rippable from the walls and floors), has gone.

Other vultures circling the estate are scrap metal vans. When Hazell was packing up her home on Wordsworth Drive a few weeks ago, she counted at least six different vehicles driving around searching for scrap in just a few hours. Some drivers have turned unpleasant when challenged by residents about what they’re up to. Mavis, who still lives on the estate, said the ‘scrap men have eyes everywhere. You daren’t leave anything out’.

Ordinary people, too, have made their way to the estate, hoping to get something that Wordsworth and Sugar Hill residents have been forced to leave behind. Flowers are being dug up from the gardens of vacant homes, and residents receive regular enquiries about the availability of this or that on their driveways. Of course, there are also those that don’t ask. In early April, a minivan was stolen from a lay-by in our previously quiet cul-de-sac estate.

Wordsworth Drive has also become the target of fly-tippers in recent weeks. In the dead of night, vans arrive and dump old washing machines, fridges, garden waste and other rubbish in the front gardens of boarded houses. This used to be a safe estate that children and pets would play freely on, without supervision or fear. Now they are streets filled with strangers.

Left to rot

Anxious residents and local councillor Stewart Golton have raised these security concerns repeatedly with Pemberstone, who have responded in turn with hollow reassurances. According to Pemberstone, their managing agent sends staff to the estate weekly to check vacant buildings are ‘secure’ (through putting up that well-known impenetrable material – the MDF panel – to keep thieves out). When they are made aware of fly-tipping, Pemberstone explained, they organise for its removal (though not in any rush, it seems – the garden waste took over a month to be removed).  This sounds very much like shutting the stable door after the horse has bolted. 

At the very least, ‘we need some notices up saying “Private Property: Keep Out. No Fly-Tipping!”’ says Mavis, who is yet again reporting these concerns to Pemberstone in an upcoming forum. Lawbreakers need to know they risk being identified and prosecuted for dumping waste on the estate or stealing from the houses – but there’s no fear of that at the minute.

Mavis and other remaining residents – predominantly pensioners and families – now feel trapped in an estate that’s being left to rot. Losing their friends and neighbours, surrounded by boarded-up houses, and encircled by opportunist scrappies, fly-tippers, and thieves. This is the human cost of Pemberstone’s redevelopment, and I doubt very much this will appear in the glossy sales booklets that will market their forthcoming executive houses.

Bob Ward is a Leeds resident and longtime friend and supporter of the #SaveOurHomesLS26 campaign. On Wednesday, Bob gave a passionate deputation to Leeds City Council members, calling on them to act with sense and compassion, to stop the ongoing evictions, and to purchase the houses to add to Leeds’ woefully inadequate housing stock. “It is social injustice writ large in the way in which ordinary good people can have their lives completely overturned by the pursuit of financial gain”, he said. During the deputation, Bob was accompanied by Robert Walker, Hazell Field, and Linda Elsworth – neighbours who are desperately clinging on to their homes and their community.

The Yorkshire Evening Post covered the deputation in an online article today, and below we have summarised some key highlights.

Bob stated that:

• Pemberstone claim the houses are dangerously deteriorating, yet they have not published studies to sufficiently evidence this apparently “rapid” deterioration over time. Independent inspections in June 2021 organised by the campaign have failed to locate some of the defects previously reported by Pemberstone – raising questions about their existence in the first place. ‘Was this the “Miracle of Oulton”? Cracked posts that healed themselves?’ Bob asked. There are clear inconsistencies here.

• Residents are now being evicted and the Council is assisting some to secure temporary accommodation in order to support the vacation of the entire estate. Promises have been made to residents by the Council that, when the new estate is built, many evicted residents will have the chance to move back into some of the “affordable” properties on a local lettings policy. Even if this were true, Bob pointed out, it will take a minimum of three years to get to that point: “Not a prospect to be relished by residents in their seventies, thrown into a scarce, scattered, expensive and discriminatory housing market“.

• Bob also pointed out that, with this mass eviction going ahead, it is worsening the already desperate local social housing situation. If the council purchased the estate, then everybody wins as “70 houses would be added to the council’s stock”.

Bob’s closed his deputation with a powerful request…

Lord Mayor and elected members – please look these proud people in the eye and try to imagine, as you return to your secure homes this evening, how they must be feeling.

These people are NOT pieces on a chessboard.

They are dignified human beings and deserve and need your support, and need it urgently.

This is a matter of conscience and justice.

Lord Mayor and elected members

Stop using the “fig leaf” of Section 21

Do the right thing.

Stop any further evictions.

Put yourselves on the right side of history.

Thank you for your time and kind attention.

His speech was followed by a standing ovation from many members of Leeds City Council. Councillors then voted to refer it up to senior officials and the Council will return to look at the proposals at a later date. Though, as Bob said in the Yorkshire Evening Post today, “it’s probably the equivalent of being kicked into the long grass”.

You can watch the webcast of Bob’s speech here. Fast forward to around 28 minutes in:
https://democracy.leeds.gov.uk/ieListDocuments.aspx?CId=111&MId=11486&Ver=4

Thank you Bob, for your continued support of our campaign. We only hope they listen!

On 17 March, ITV’s Tonight programme covered the private rental housing crisis in Britain today. The end of the episode featured Cindy, John, Sue, and Linda, who shared their experiences and fears about being evicted from Wordsworth Drive and Sugar Hill Close and having nowhere to go. As John said, the landlord has made a lot of money from us over the years – and now everyone is being forced out of their beloved homes with nowhere to go… all so Pemberstone can make even more.

The show puts rental challenges in a national context, and the outlook is depressing. Fewer than 6,000 social houses were built last year, which is nowhere near enough to absorb the 1 million+ people on council housing waiting lists, or the 250,000 currently in emergency accommodation. Presenter Daniel Hewitt also highlighted that competition for private rents has increased by 94% in the last year – and with hikes in private rental rates, the bulk of that competition will be concentrated around the smattering of “affordable” rented properties. That’s exactly what we’ve experienced, as residents have been turned away time and again for rental viewings (let alone applications!) because estate agents have already had “too much interest”.

Some of our neighbours have moved out of the Oulton estate already but, just like other people featured in the programme, they are now paying rent rates that are unaffordable and unsustainable over the longer term. As Linda explained – “It’s just as if the rug has been fulled from under your feet, there’s nothing to do, nowhere to go, and no help’s coming”.

You can watch this show on ITV hub for three more weeks: https://www.itv.com/hub/tonight/1a9757a0123

Tonight

Losing Your Home – The True Cost – Tonight

Series 24 – Episode 9– Millions in the UK rent privately, but with a growing cost-of-living crisis emerging, there are warnings that a new wave of evictions could be imminent.

The BBC have an ongoing documentary series exploring issues faced by people across the country. One of their latest episodes, aired last night, is about our community and the fight to save our homes. BBC Producer Elliott and his team spent several months filming Cindy and John, Linda, Mavis and Barry, and other neighbours on our estate as they approached, and overstayed, eviction day.

It’s available to watch on BBC iPlayer now – please watch and share. The BBC team have done a wonderful job in showing our close-knit community and the stress the whole eviction process has created for residents (thank you Elliott!). There are also beautiful birds-eye shots of the estate and residents’ homes… this footage will be some of the last that captures our historic two streets before they are demolished.

Watch on BBC iPlayer: https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m00157j4/we-are-england-a-place-called-home-fighting-for-our-homes-leeds

“We Are England

A Place Called Home: Fighting for Our Homes – Leeds

Neighbours on a Leeds housing estate fight to keep their community together when faced with eviction from their privately rented homes, that have stood since the 1950s. 

The residents’ battle highlights the strength of community in working-class neighbourhoods and speaks to issues of gentrification seen across the country. This film follows several residents on the estate in the weeks leading up to their eviction, as they desperately fight for more time and for their community to stay together.”

The housing campaign organisation Judicial Domicide have written a letter to Leeds City Council in support of Councillor Stewart Golton’s motion that:
“The existing £4.9m within the Council House Growth Fund (CHGF) should be re-allocated to purchase and refurbish properties on the Wordsworth Drive and Sugar Hill in Oulton. (‘estate’)”

This move would be a way to save our beloved Oulton estate from demolition. Most importantly, it would keep a community of close-knit neighbours together with roofs over their heads – a basic human right.

Read their letter in full below.

Many, many thanks to Judicial Domicide for their continued support during these very difficult times.

#SaveOurHomesLS26

Last week, a new round of eviction notices were issued to residents in the ‘amber’ houses, giving these families just two months to find a new home.

This week, residents whose eviction notice ended in December have been served with a claim form for possession by the court. This is not just a legal letter, it comes with punishing costs: £355.00 in court fees and £69.50 in legal costs… Residents are being ordered to pay for their own eviction! £424.50 is no small sum for low-income households. Pemberstone are pursuing every means they can to force families out of their homes.

But to go where?

Wordsworth Drive and Sugar Hill Close residents are stuck between a rock and a hard place, as options are limited and many other private landlords are refusing to rent to them.

Supply and cost crisis

Council house options remain a non-starter, as there are so few available and they have hundreds of bidders. Cindy and John recently shared that they were 693rd on a list for one house they bid for.

Two and three-bed rentals in the LS26 postcode are in critically short supply, too. A search on Rightmove for rental properties within a 3 mile radius of our Oulton estate brings up just 14 options. That’s nowhere near enough to house the dozens of families currently being forced out of our estate. Moreover, many of these rentals are not on bus routes that enable people to easily get to work or maintain care responsibilities for their wider families.

In addition to supply issues, rental costs of these houses remain prohibitive. There are just 6 three-bed houses in that list of 14, and their rents start at £795 per month and go up to £1,100 per month – that’s at least a 65% increase on what families are paying in Wordsworth Drive and Sugar Hill Close. Even if some residents downsize from their three-bed to a two-bed, they’ll still be paying hundreds more than their current rates and will lose a significant amount of personal space. Such rent hikes are a scary prospect when we’re all at the cliff edge of a cost-of-living crisis in food and energy prices.

Discrimination

On top of all of that, even when a property is available in the right location at a manageable price, residents are being turned away by other private landlords.

Some won’t allow pets, forcing people into agonising decisions about what to do with dogs, cats and other furry companions who aren’t just members of the family, but have been vital emotional support during the pandemic.

Other landlords won’t even consider tenants who are being helped by the Council or are in receipt of housing benefits.

Discrimination against housing benefits claimants risks breaking the law. Two high profile cases in 2020 saw judges rule that refusal to let to someone because they receive housing benefits can be “indirectly discriminatory on the grounds of sex and disability contrary to sections 19 and 29 of the Equality Act 2010”. Yet it is still happening because landlords can cloak prejudice in affordability checks.

Neighbours in our Oulton estate have been told directly and indirectly that they are not being considered because landlords don’t believe they can afford the rents, or that landlords don’t want to deal with tenants in receipt of benefits or other Council support. Even when residents come with guarantors – i.e. family or friends who agree to be a back up for rent – they are still being turned down.

People on this estate have a long history of paying rent on time to Pemberstone and no record of rent arrears elsewhere. Yet this doesn’t seem to matter.

The brutal irony is that the longer this discrimination goes on, the longer tenants will be forced to overstay their eviction notices and breach their tenancy, rendering them ‘poor’ future tenants for future landlords. It’s a Catch-22 where our families have zero options.

Vicky Spratt – activist journalist from the i Newspaper – recently visited Wordsworth Drive and Sugar Hill Close to listen and help tell our story. We shared our fears with her, describing the impact that this eviction and gentrification process is having on our lives, health, and futures. Vicky and our neighbours also tell the wider story of tenant precarity and the unaffordability of private rentals in Leeds.

Read Vicky’s Long Read reporting here: https://inews.co.uk/news/long-reads/leeds-gentrification-breaking-up-former-mining-community-1361018

Watch her 6 minute video on Twitter: