Many social housing residents in SE1 are this week reeling from the shock discovery that they are going to lose their homes. How did they find out? Not from their respective landlords – a Southwark based charity and London and Quadrant – but from a news item on the SE1 website. Responses to the Council’s Blackfriars Road Supplementary Planning Document (SPD) have revealed that a private company has bought the land that their homes sit on, and is planning a massive redevelopment of the site.

They describe the current buildings as having no architectural merit. Is that really what it boils down to? History no longer matters, homes no longer matter, the feelings of those whose families have lived in those homes for generations no longer matter? Is that really this Labour Council’s idea of a socially inclusive Southwark?