A year ago we witnessed Britain\u2019s deadliest fire in living memory. The morning after, we learned that warnings about fire safety from residents had been ignored. Later we heard about the safety failures at national and local level, and companies hawking unsafe building materials unchecked.<\/p>\n
After Grenfell, many argued that the atrocity should signal a turning point in housing policy. We have yet to see this turning point. We hear that cladding like that used at Grenfell will not be banned. Indeed, it took 11 months for Theresa May to commit \u00a3400m to remove existing cladding from tower blocks. Even this modest and long overdue announcement was revealed as a sham: the \u00a3400m was to be pinched from affordable housing budgets. It is scandalous that a year on from this tragedy, politicians are whittling down public housing budgets and failing to take action to keep residents safe.<\/p>\n
This political disregard for social tenants is rooted in state disinvestment from public housing, and unaccountable private interests taking over the building and management of social housing. Our estates are being run down and demolished while public assets are sold off. Meanwhile 80% of new homes built in London are affordable only to the richest 8% of the city.<\/p>\n
The mayor of London is to enforce ballots on some estates facing \u201cregeneration\u201d. This is a start \u2013 but we need political will at all levels to ensure that development benefits tenants first, and that what gets built locally meets local needs.<\/p>\n
A tragedy like Grenfell must never happen again. We need public investment in safe, decent public housing that is affordable for everyone. We want a housing system where tenants are listened to. And we need housing policy driven by public interest, not by the market.<\/p>\n
Katya Nasim,<\/strong> Radical Housing Network
\nDr Faiza Shaheen,<\/strong> Director of CLASS
\nDoug Thorpe,<\/strong> Stop HDV Campaign
\nEmma Dent Coad<\/strong>, Labour MP for Kensington
\nSian Berry,<\/strong> Green party London assembly member
\nPiers and Tanya Thompson,<\/strong> Save Our Silchester
\nRichard Chute,<\/strong> Chair, Earls Court Tenants\u2019 Association
\nJoe Beswick,<\/strong> Head of Housing and Land, New Economics Foundation
\nEileen Short,<\/strong> Chair, Defend Council Housing
\nPilgrim Tucker,<\/strong> Community Organiser
\nDawn Foster,<\/strong> Journalist
\nCllr Jonathan Bartley,<\/strong> Co-leader, Green party
\nJean Lambert,<\/strong> Green party MEP for London
\nSusan Pashkoff,<\/strong> Chair, East London Unite Community
\nMartin Goodsell,<\/strong> Secretary, East London Unite Community
\nRachael Hookaway,<\/strong> GMB Young London
\nDanny Dorling,<\/strong> Author of All that is Solid: The Great Housing Disaster, University of Oxford
\nAnna Minton,<\/strong> Author of Big Capital: Who is London for?, Reader in Architecture, University of East London
\nDr David Madden,<\/strong> Author of In Defense of Housing: The Politics of Crisis, London School of Economics
\nSamir Jeraj,<\/strong> Author of The Rent Trap
\nDr Sally Zlotowitz,<\/strong> Clinical and community psychologist, Housing and Mental Health Network
\nSabtir Singh,<\/strong> Chief executive, Joint Council for the Welfare of Immigrants
\nSahaya Guthrie,<\/strong> Stop the Elephant Development
\nDanielle Gregory and Hannan Majid,<\/strong> Ledbury Action Group
\nPauline Wamunyu,<\/strong> Save Reginald House and Tidemill
\nJacqueline Utley Achilles,<\/strong> Stop and Listen Campaign
\nLucy Butler,<\/strong> Deptford People Project
\nHeather Gilmore<\/strong>, No Social Cleansing in Lewisham
\nLuciana Duailibe,<\/strong> Chair, Co-oPepys Community Arts Project
\nBill Perry,<\/strong> Lambeth Housing Activists
\nPotent Whisper,<\/strong> Our Brixton
\nAmina Gichinga<\/strong>, London Renters Union
\nAnne Cooper,<\/strong> Save Cressingham Campaign
\nAndy Thornes,<\/strong> Crossfields Residents Association Secretary
\nAnuj Vats Citiscape,<\/strong> Residents Association
\nAysen Dennis,<\/strong> Fight 4 Aylesbury
\nSimon Hannah and Ruth Cashman,<\/strong> Joint branch secretaries, Lambeth Unison
\nSonia Mckenzie,<\/strong> Chair of the Fred Wigg and John Walsh Towers Tenants and Residents Association
\nTerry Harper,<\/strong> Millbank Residents Association
\nUzoamaka Okafor,<\/strong> Chair, Myatts Field North Residents Association and PFI Monitoring Board
\nDr Vickie Cooper,<\/strong> Open University
\nDr Debbie Humphry,<\/strong> Kingston University
\nDr Stuart Hodkinson,<\/strong> University of Leeds
\nDr Nicholas Falk,<\/strong> Urbed Trust
\nMichael Edwards,<\/strong> Hon professor, UCL (Bartlett School of Planning)
\nBen Beach,<\/strong> Concrete Action
\nJohn Hamilton,<\/strong> Lewisham People Before Profit
\nHeather Kennedy,<\/strong> Digs (Hackney Renters)
\nSophie Morley,<\/strong> Architecture Sans Fronti\u00e8res UK
\nTom Wilkinson,<\/strong> Architectural Review
\nHannah Sheerin,<\/strong> President, Cambridge University Architecture Society
\nLiza Fior,<\/strong> MUF architecture\/art
\nDouglas Murphy,<\/strong> Writer, RCA\/CSM
\nElizabeth Wilbraham,<\/strong> Workers Inquiry: Architecture (Architectural Workers Union)
\nCharlotte Grace,<\/strong> Novara Media
\nAndrea Luka Zimmerman<\/strong> and David Roberts<\/strong>, Film directors of The Estate We\u2019re In
\nPaul Sng,<\/strong> Film director of Dispossession<\/p>\n
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