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CATFORD: Prefabs listed in estate threatened with demolition


SIX prefab homes on an estate have been given listed status - a move which could scupper demolition plans.

The homes on Persant Road in Catford’s Excalibur estate have been given Grade II status by the Government’s Department for Culture Media and Sport.

Grade II listings are viewed to be of special interest, warranting every effort to preserve them.

Lewisham Council, which owns 80 percent of the estate, wanted to hand over the estate to London and Quadrant housing associatin.

The site would then be redeveloped to bring the houses up to Decent Homes Standard - a Government benchmark for the quality of housing.

But residents on the estate, which contains 187 pre-fabricated homes and a prefab church built by German PoWs in the 1940s, had been divided over the plans.

The Worried Tenants Group was set up three years ago to fight the demolition.

Jim Blackender, 55, a group member who lives on the estate in Pelinore Road, said: “We’re very pleased at the news but for us it’s just another rung on the ladder.

“Until the entire estate gets some sort of protection we won’t rest.

“If people don’t stand up and fight for their heritage there’ll be nothing left.”

He said: “The listings prove the historic importance of the rest of the prefabs too.

“We say this gives us the recommendation we need to push forward now for a conservation area on the whole estate.”

But Kay Sim, 63, who has lived in Mordred Road for 21 years, said: “I’m not happy.

“A lot of people now are really getting fed up. If this had not kicked off we could be well on our way by now.

“The people that wanted listed buildings should go and live in them.

“In five or six years time we’ll all sitting in our nice and cosy new houses while there’s are falling down around their ears.”

Ms Sim says the homes are difficult to keep warm and are in a poor state of repair.

She said: “I’ve had more water inside than there’s been rain outside.

“I just want out as quick as I can go and to get somewhere warm.”

English Heritage had recommended 21 of the homes for listing by the department but only six were listed by the department because they were in the "least-altered portion" of the estate.

The department also praised Excalibur as "the largest surviving post-war prefab estate in England", deemed to be of historic importance and special archaelogical interest.

Councillor for Whitefoot ward Cllr Daniel Houghton said: “It throws a bit of a spanner in the works in terms of trying to redevelop the estate.

“What we want is for London and Quadrant to go away and be as quick as possible in coming up with some revised plans.”

A spokesman for Lewisham Council said: “The council is in the process of contacting residents who live in these newly listed buildings, to discuss the impact of the listing status and what it will mean to them in terms of work they can or cannot carry out on their properties.”

Comments(3)

knockem down says...
1:23pm Tue 24 Mar 09

This estate of prefabs is long overdue for demolition....the worried tenants group are and have been just a group of foul mouthed bullies terrorising some of the elderly folk on this estate to try and get them on their side. Their tactics have not gone unnoticed by the management of this estate, but instead, the management have opted to just completely ignore their behaviour... idealy, those involved in the bullying should be at the very least , given notice of eviction and their behaviour corrected by the law and criminal records dished out to those involved in such behaviour. The worried tenants do not and never have been fighting for and on behalf of the entire estate and the law abiding residents that live here, instead, they have been fighting against the good decent elderly and those that they think they can get away with it with.
They say that they are trying to retain a selective individual community on a crime free estate, whereas the reality is the worried tenants group is tearing the community apart and being the only ones on this estate dishing out any crime by means of bullying and abusive behaviour against the very community that they are claiming to be fighting on behalf of.
There is a vast majority of homes on this estate that the so called management have avoided spending ANY money on by means of repair, these homes and the health of many residents have suffered due to this. This entire estate deserve to have a good quality ,warm and dry damp free home to live in, especially due to the conditions that we have all been forced to put up with over the many years. The bullying worried tenants group have only really been self minded within their own close knit group. concerns for the entire estate, YEAH, RIGHT. Dont make me laugh,, where were their concerns when they as an unelected
group went right behind every residents back and wrote to the DCMS and Heritage requesting listing on this entire estate. NOW, there is very little hope for those residents that shall remain in the selected prefabs while all around them they shall be seeing their neighbours moving into their brand new homes while they have to be forced to live in squalor. It is absolutely disgraceful. Every single one of these prefabs are not worth saving. The worried tenants group have even been crafty to the extent of going out of their way by visiting fresh new tenants and brain washing them to try their best to get them on their side to save the prefabs ... and so now some members of the worried tenants group who have only been here five minutes compared to other residents that have been here for many years are now on their side and shouting their foul mouthed remarks and demanding that we should all stand up to save this rotten , dilapidated estate with a split community ( because of the worried tenants group )
As a closing statement i just wish to say to the worried tenants group as they have abusively yelled and written in many statements to the decent residents on this estate, ( PUT UP AND SHUT UP ) you self minded bigots.

jim-999 says...
12:34am Thu 26 Mar 09

The person that left the last comment is feeling a bit left out.
Instead of slagging down individuals they should explain why the prefabs are not in his opinion worth saving .if the worried tenants group has not got the support of the estate how come they managed to elect a brand new management group of their own choice,
Seems to me the person that wrote the comments lack a serious education. And I can tell you that they live in a prefab that has been listed. The majority of tenants on the estate know who they are, and are getting a bit fed up with the slander, especially seeing that they have the police knocking on their door every now and then due to unruly disturbances, what goes around comes around

knockem down says...
10:45pm Wed 1 Apr 09

jim -999 yeah , right. is that the name that the anti-christ uses?. well in this case it is,,,
just because your own miserable existance causes you to get your nose stuck into other peoples lives, causing other tenants that deserve the right to live in a decent home, the monotonous misery of having to wait in the squalor that would not be acceptable in many major cities in the world , fully knowing that eventually these shanty town shacks would be eventually pulled down ( hopefully yours will be the first and higher hopes that you lose the right to be rehoused anywhere on any council list in the country ever again).
QUOTE:
Instead of slagging down individuals they should explain why the prefabs are not in his opinion worth saving . END QUOTE
.
This is where facts need to be addressed correctly. It is not and has never been my OPINION that the prefabs are not worth saving. Here we go again, this is where we have to make things easy for you Mr blackender. It is the opinion of the government that stipulates that all social housing has got to be brought up to a decent standard by the year 2010. It is the opinions of the local authorities / landlords, Lewisham council, that in order to bring these homes up to the required standard as per say The Decent Homes Standard , that it is not a financially viable option in the long term. It is also the opinion of the DCMS (Department of culture,media and sport) after long discussions and debates with English Heritage that these prefabs are not worthy of saving except for the six they have decided upon. IT IS my opinion that even that six are not worth the effort of saving,,, KNOCKEM DOWN I SAY.
You that appear to be a very well educated individual are so clever to try to pick on a persons education as a means of arguing the case to save the prefabs , do not even have the intelligence of understanding plain and simple facts , even when they are dealt to you in plain and simple english. Did you mark my test results in school,,,??? I DONT THINK SO. If i wanted to play tit for tat i could say that you are to thick to be stupid., but i wont say that as some stupid people might become offended. I can clearly state that the majority of tenants DO WANT A NEW HOME. Even if you dont...!!! You on the other hand are too stuuuupid to know which side your bread is buttered. ALSO,, the majority of residents are fed up with YOU and your whinging and crying over losing what is worthless and suitable only for a scrapyard toilet , instead of looking forward and embracing the oppurtunity of living in a better standard of a home, such as a filthy flat on the top of a tower block.
What goes around comes around, dont make me laugh,,, these prefabs will never come around again , of that i am pretty sure....
To finish this off i will only say that the only time i've ever had police knocking on my door is when they were looking for YOU.

Jim 999 , get a grip and get a life, stop interfering in peoples lives and things that you clearly do not understand, and perhaps if you go and have your first real day in school at first level, then you just might start to understand the queens english.
But i fear it might be simply just too late for you,,,


The estate is the biggest of its kind in Europe. The buildings were due to be demolished under council plans

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