WECH@40: Tenants, democracy and community ownership
Jonathan Rosenberg
Founder, Walterton and Elgin Community Homes
Walterton and Elgin Community Homes (WECH) is a Housing Association (Registered Provider) which took ownership of the Walterton and Elgin Estates in North Paddington, City of Westminster in 1992 after a 7-year campaign to prevent council homes being sold for redevelopment.
Elgin Estate 1960s tower blocks
The Tenants’ Choice provisions in the 1988 Housing Act – designed to privatise council housing, and which were repealed in 1996 – allowed WECH to forcibly acquire its estates, creating a constitutional model that is rare within England’s social housing sector.
WECH’s founders wish to share their story in the context of a growing community ownership movement and its potential to address social inequality. WECH@40 aims to research, preserve and disseminate campaign assets and stories, engage younger residents in valuing and sustaining their democratic privileges, and share learning with policy makers.
WECH’s legacy
Chair of WECH cuts ribbon on WECH’s first completed Victorian house refurbishment
WECH is a large-scale democratic community-owned housing association: its history needs to be contextualised, preserved and re-interpreted to enable WECH’s population to protect its democratic ownership, and to inform national discourse.
According to the Office for National Statistics, of the 7,264 Middle Layer Super Output Areas in England & Wales, WECH is in the most densely populated of all; and it is in the 20% most deprived. Yet WECH’s peers are to be found in the least populated, most remote and most rural community owned estates in Scotland, and in the proliferation of Community Land Trusts in England and Wales.
WECH Homes
WECH owns and manages 675 homes, turning over circa £5Million per year, providing affordable high-quality housing for 1,500 people. It runs a community centre, which hosts 40 services such as food and clothes banks, debt and welfare advice, and activities such as for health and wellbeing.
Over the past 40 years, surrounding housing associations have merged with larger entities: Paddington Churches is now Notting Hill Genesis, Brent People’s is Sovereign Network Group, and Octavia is almost Abri.
WECH’s governance, which arises from the Community Based Housing Association model rules, is a democratic, locally based Community Land Trust. Residents, who are WECH members (from over 75% of households), elect the Board, which determines policy, and appoints experts and the Chief Executive.
WECH’s campaign to defend its homes, and to take ownership and control, attracted national media coverage and political attention, and is much referenced in academic studies and texts.
Homes for Votes
In the 1990s, the District Auditor’s investigations into the gerrymandering ‘Homes for Votes’ scandal uncovered documents about Walterton and Elgin which forced the Council to commission an external investigator. He reported that the Council had conducted what he called “war” against the WECH community to block it from taking ownership.
The Council’s “dirty tricks” included attempts, which were unconventional (at least for a local authority), to dissuade the then Housing Corporation Registrar, James Tickell, from registering WECH as a housing association. This dirty trick was not the only one which failed.
The Council’s investigator then produced a 650-page examination of the Council’s decision, in furtherance of that “war” against WECH, to house 100 homeless families into the worst asbestos-ridden tower blocks in the country. He concluded that, not only was it unlawful, but it was the worst decision ever taken in the history of local government – one which WECH reversed in 1990 by getting the Daily Mirror’s then Political Editor, Alastair Campbell, to expose on its front page.
The WECH@40 project
To sustain WECH for the next 40 years, its younger residents must claim their history and guard their democratic privileges by getting involved with governance and initiating community services. Bringing together WECH’s archive and stories for future generations will empower them with the knowledge and tools to shape WECH’s future.
WECH@40 reveals how an asset-empowered, democratically accountable community has delivered transformative change in an otherwise disadvantaged neighbourhood: at its heart, this project is about amplifying tenants’ voices, promoting community ownership, and championing democracy.
Anyone who wishes to get involved with WECH@40, or who has suggestions for raising funds to support this project, please contact Jonathan Rosenberg: jlnr49@gmail.com
To discuss any points raised in this blog please contact CT Partner, Greg Campbell at greg.campbell@campbelltickell.com or +44(0) 20 8830 6777
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