Oskar Silva does not look like the typical football player who is into beating other borough teams every now and then. The Latin American in his mid 40s has neither broad shoulders nor steely muscles – but his belly covers his beige trouser waistband. Oskar nevertheless loves to play football – two years ago he founded his own team. All of the players are over forty and of Latin American origin. “There are not a lot of opportunities for older Latin Americans to do sports. Either they don’t have enough money to go to the gyms or they are new in this country and don’t know where to go”, says Silva. The legal adviser of the Latin American Migrant Advice Centre knows the needs of his community. He has now been working for more than fifteen years in the borough of Southwark, where the majority of London’s Latino American is at home. The community centre “Distriandina” close to the large intersection of Elephant and Castle is one of the places where Latinos meet to dance, drink or to seek advice in Silva’s office.
Oskar Silva is passionate about playing football.
The borough of Southwark is not only known as the center of Latin American life in London, but for its highly diverse population. Covering a long stretch that borders on the City of London, the financial heart of Europe and runs South as far as the notoriously poor neighborhoods of Croydon – Southwark is making news for gun crime in Peckham and for gated communities in Dulwich and Herne Hill. In short since the days of Oliver Twist, the incredibly poor and the incredibly rich share the same streets, the same bus stops and usually the same Tesco supermarket on the same corner.
A couple of years ago Silva created a league of football teams to give youngsters and elder men the opportunity to play the most popular sport of Latin America. The conditions couldn’t have been better: Right in front of Distriandina, just across the street, are two large football pitches, which belong to a large social housing project, the Heygate estate. “On March 7th a fence around the park was built. We are not able to play there anymore and we don’t know where to go”, says Silva.
The council’s plan to bury the Heygate estate
The tenants of the Heygate estate never called for a fence in order to kick out the Latin Americans from their football pitches, but came from the Australian property group Lend Lease, which is Southwark’s chosen developer for regenerating the Heygate estate. Once the apartment complex housed more than 3,000 occupants of diverse ethnic origin: families originally from England, Cyprus, the Ivory Coast, the Caribbean or Columbia. Today, only 11 out of 1260 units are occupied. The council of Southwark has namely something “bigger” in its mind than just maintaining a social housing project: It wants to bulldoze the blocks of buildings in order to make room for 3300 more luxurious dwellings – not nurses, factory workers or clerks should get a home there, but rather bankers, Russian and Chinese investors, or the growing number of young professionals who are attracted by the rough charm of London’s South East.
“The council takes the piss out of us”, says D. who is one of the 20 tenants who are still refusing to leave the estate. The 43-year old film editor is both defying the council and yet fearing it: “I don’t want my name in any magazine or newspaper, since I am afraid that the council will put pressure on my family and me”, says D. The Londoner with the Greek-Cypriot roots has been living at the Heygate estate since 1974. He was a child, when his parents pointed at the big blocks of flats and told him that they would live there.
From a sound housing environment to criminal and poor one
In D.’s memory, the past is full of flowers and bees. Children playing at ease in the courtyards – far away from the big roads; neighbours well acquainted and supportive of each other; he remembers neither crime nor racisms as a part of their lives until roughly ten years ago. “Around the turn of the millennium, we heard about the project that the Heygate estate will be regenerated. At the beginning, we all believed that new and better homes will be built for us”, recalls D. and bristles with anger. Step by step the occupants realized that their expectations could not have been further from the truth. When the first residents left the Heygate estate, only short-term rental agreements were issued. “In the beginning, people had moved here for the quiet and family-friendly surroundings, located in close proximity to the jobs and attractions of London’s centre.” At the end of the 1990s, these working-class families started to leave the estate and their apartments were often taken over by those that D. only refers to as “troublemakers”. He believes families who posed a problem to other estates, because of criminal behavior or financial difficulties had been moved deliberately to Heygate.
Adrian Glasspool, a friend of D. and one of the few other remaining residents of Heygate, has invited D. for a cup of tea into his kitchen. Adrian quickly joins D.’s lamentation over the loss of his old neighborhood with the story of a large family that had moved into the estate in the early 2000s. A few weeks later, residents started to wake up to the sound of shattering windows, while clothes started to disappear from the courtyards. The family later moved on but Adrian believes that the neighborhood was intentionally brought down by an apathetic, or worse, landlord.
Gentrification projects ignore present long term residents
Other developments have led to further degradation and the council made its stand clear that residents had to move away. Especially occupants who cannot speak English too well felt frightened by the clerks of the developer who stood in front of their houses in flats to make them leave the estate. More broken windows and a growing number of homeless seeking refuge in the almost vacated buildings were the consequence. Finally, in 2007, heating and garbage removal were no longer provided to the remaining residents of Heygate estate. Although D. is now sitting in Adrian’s kitchen, whose apartment is one of the few that are still heated, D. has not taken off his jacket and hat. He remembers the long winter he spent with his parents after the heat was cut off from the apartment they share not far away from Adrian’s apartment.
The case of the Heygate estate may only be the top of the iceberg of forced gentrification projects in London’s Southern and Eastern boroughs. The general situation has been aggravated by the plans to refurbish entire neighborhoods just in time for the 2012 Olympics. The real estate crisis has only slowed down the sequence of destruction and construction – few projects have been cancelled definitely. Local politics shows little support for residents since it is usually the boroughs who profit of deals with more aggressive developers.
Academics, such as Anne Power of the London School of Economics, have long questioned the motivations of politicians and developers. Facing great demand for social housing, she told the Guardian, the boroughs should not cling to gentrification projects that cater only to the chosen few, but pay attention to the needs of their larger electorate. Fiona Colley, cabinet member for the regeneration of Southwark, denies that the to-be-constructed buildings will be closed off to former residents but acknowledges that they cannot live there for more than ten years while the construction is going on.
Residents, who lived door to door for ages, are now living dispersed all over Southwark. “With a lot of neighbours we don’t have any contact anymore”, tells Adrian. He takes a last stroll through his neighborhood. Abandoned buildings and apartments are barricaded with steel doors to discourage the homeless. A few homeless men are camping on the balconies connecting the apartments. He is standing on one of the balconies overlooking the skyline of London in the afternoon. As his view passes from the silhouette of Parliament to the emptiness below, he looks over to the football pitches, where Oscar’s players fought their matches in the better days of Heygate Estate.
By: Marion Bacher
