Hands Off Our Land! Hands Off Our Housing

 

The sale of public land has mushroomed in the past decade as councils try and increase shortfalls in their budgets left by national government cuts. The result of this has not been more social housing, in fact the opposite. It amounts to a transfer of wealth from the public sector to the private sector. Savills has played a key role in helping developers get hold of public land. Instead of seen as against the interests of the public, though, local and national government use Savills to advise them on what to do- a clear clash of interests. The photo above is from the Savills website, showing their mapping of local authorities to target.

Public land needs to be directly managed by the public. Clearly the association of private developers and companies like Savills with politicians in local government is an attack on the working class. 

Campaigners from Lambeth and the Radical Housing Network have been highlighting the role of Savills in the attack on council housing. They are calling for a protest this Saturday, the 15^th. Please support and share their call-out posted below.

Support the protest initiated by Lambeth campaigners against Savills this Saturday January 15th 2pm Margaret St (near Oxford circus tube).

Why are Local Authorities paying Savills as consultants to tell them council housing is worthless? Lambeth is the latest council to announce they are hiring Savills to do a 'stock condition survey'. Previous surveys by Savills have declared swathes of council housing to have a zero or negative value, disregarding the value of these properties to the communities who live in them and the impact to the environment of tearing down buildings instead of refurbishing them. These so-called ‘valuations’ have been used to justify demolishing council estates thereby opening up prime council land for private developments and profiteering - by the kind of investors who hold shares in Savills. Sounds like a scam? It is. Tell Savills to get their hands off our housing.

Join housing campaigners from Lambeth and the Radical Housing Network to protest outside Savills head office in London.

https://www.facebook.com/events/4683268491763649

https://www.change.org/p/mr-mark-ridley-savills-hands-off-our-housing

For more info about Savills’ role in getting hold of public land for private developers ‘from the horse’s mouth’ see:

https://pdf.euro.savills.co.uk/uk/residential---other/new-homes-on-public-sector-land.pdf

https://www.savills.co.uk/research_articles/229130/202113-0