Clays Lane Estate
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The Clays Lane Estate was a
housing estate A housing estate (or sometimes housing complex or housing development) is a group of homes and other buildings built together as a single development. The exact form may vary from country to country. Popular throughout the United States a ...
in Stratford, east
London London is the capital and largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary down to the North Sea, and has been a majo ...
, and the UK’s largest (and Europe's second largest) purpose built
housing cooperative A housing cooperative, or housing co-op, is a legal entity, usually a cooperative or a corporation, which owns real estate, consisting of one or more residential buildings; it is one type of housing tenure. Housing cooperatives are a distinc ...
. It was an experiment in building close-knit communities as a way of helping vulnerable single people. It became the subject of significant controversy when it was demolished to make way for the site of the
London 2012 The 2012 Summer Olympics (officially the Games of the XXX Olympiad and also known as London 2012) was an international multi-sport event held from 27 July to 12 August 2012 in London, England, United Kingdom. The first event, the ...
Olympic games.Olympic Disagreement over Evictions
The Guardian, 18 June 2007


Creation and organisation

Clays Lane Housing Co-operative was a fully mutual housing co-operative, established to address the lack of housing for vulnerable single people in the east of London. It was initially funded by organisations including
Newham London Borough Council Newham London Borough Council is the local authority for the London Borough of Newham. It is a London borough council, one of 32 in the United Kingdom capital of London. The council is unusual in that its executive function is controlled by a dir ...
and the
University of East London , mottoeng = Knowledge and the fulfilment of vows , established = 1898 – West Ham Technical Institute1952 – West Ham College of Technology1970 – North East London Polytechnic1989 – Polytechnic of East London ...
. There were up to 500 contractual tenants at the beginning, 450 after the flats were voted eligible for single person occupancy, who had to be single people aged between 18 and 59.
Tenants A leasehold estate is an ownership of a temporary right to hold land or property in which a lessee or a tenant holds rights of real property by some form of title from a lessor or landlord. Although a tenant does hold rights to real property, a l ...
were required to purchase a £1 share in order to become a member of the co-operative, which entitled them to attend and vote in the annual general meeting, to elect or stand for the management committee, participate in the co-operative’s affairs and receive its services.


Inclusive architecture & design

The Clays Lane estate consisted of an enclave of 57 shared houses in red or yellow brick (containing four, six or ten bedrooms) and 40 self-contained flats and 10 self-contained bungalows, all purpose built in 1977. The estate was set on a small artificial hill, to provide views, protect the estate from flooding, and (potentially) shield it from hazards of waste dumped underneath. A
community centre Community centres, community centers, or community halls are public locations where members of a community tend to gather for group activities, social support, public information, and other purposes. They may sometimes be open for the whole co ...
(complete with shop, café, function hall, and training room), which also housed the housing office, was added in 1982. All of the co-operative's properties were located on one site in the London Borough of Newham, on the top of a small hill next to the Eastway Cycle Circuit (which had previously been the site of an old landfill site, the West Ham Tip). This provided views across
Hackney Marshes Hackney Marshes is an area of open space in London's Lower Lea Valley, lying on the western bank of the River Lea. It takes its name from its position on the eastern boundary of Hackney, the principal part of the London Borough of Hackney, and ...
and the
Lee Valley The Lea Valley, the valley of the River Lea, has been used as a transport corridor, a source of sand and gravel, an industrial area, a water supply for London, and a recreational area. The London 2012 Summer Olympics were based in Stratford, ...
. The estate was designed to engender a strong local
community A community is a social unit (a group of living things) with commonality such as place, norms, religion, values, customs, or identity. Communities may share a sense of place situated in a given geographical area (e.g. a country, village, tow ...
, and was frequently used to help people make re-entry into social life - its motto was "A community - not just a
housing estate A housing estate (or sometimes housing complex or housing development) is a group of homes and other buildings built together as a single development. The exact form may vary from country to country. Popular throughout the United States a ...
". The housing was arranged in ten
courtyard A courtyard or court is a circumscribed area, often surrounded by a building or complex, that is open to the sky. Courtyards are common elements in both Western and Eastern building patterns and have been used by both ancient and contemporary ...
s, each of which held a monthly meeting to discuss issues that may have arisen, hear back from
committee A committee or commission is a body of one or more persons subordinate to a deliberative assembly. A committee is not itself considered to be a form of assembly. Usually, the assembly sends matters into a committee as a way to explore them more ...
representatives (each courtyard elected a member to the management committee), find out the latest news and generally catch up with each other. The estate also had its own sports teams and program of activities and training.


Loss of Cooperative status

The
Housing Corporation The Housing Corporation was the non-departmental public body that funded new affordable housing and regulated housing associations in England. It was established by the Housing Act 1964. On 1 December 2008, its functions were transferred to two n ...
instigated a standard (statutory) inquiry into the affairs of the Clays Lane Co-operative in 2000, and subsequently received a report of poor management of the Co-operative's affairs from the Audit Commission.The report was the result of an Audit Commission Inspection and which resulted in the Co-op receiving a judgement of zero stars and poor prospects for improvement. Under the Audit Commission inspection regime, this was the minimum, base, and worst possible, result for any housing provider. One of the report's most worrying findings was that the Co-op had no written Allocations Policy, which meant that it was not clear how people secured a place there or who was actually living there. It proposed that the Co-operative’s housing stock be transferred to the
Peabody Trust The Peabody Trust was founded in 1862 as the Peabody Donation Fund and now brands itself simply as Peabody.
, one of the UK’s largest housing associations, because of its better financial security, and the Government approved the transfer. The Clays Lane Co-operative appealed against the order, because as the Peabody Trust was not a co-operative they would lose their mutual status if the transfer were to go ahead. They proposed an alternative, whereby the homes be transferred to Tenants First, a mutual housing co-operative based in
Scotland Scotland (, ) is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Covering the northern third of the island of Great Britain, mainland Scotland has a border with England to the southeast and is otherwise surrounded by the Atlantic Ocean to the ...
. The
Housing Corporation The Housing Corporation was the non-departmental public body that funded new affordable housing and regulated housing associations in England. It was established by the Housing Act 1964. On 1 December 2008, its functions were transferred to two n ...
rejected this alternative and again directed transfer to the Peabody Trust. The cooperative called for a
judicial review Judicial review is a process under which executive, legislative and administrative actions are subject to review by the judiciary. A court with authority for judicial review may invalidate laws, acts and governmental actions that are incompat ...
of the decision, but this was refused, with the court ruling in June 2003 that the housing should be sold to the Peabody Trust. In August 2005 the estate was statutorily transferred to the Peabody Trust, and was subsequently managed by Waltham Forest Community Based Housing Association.


Impact of London 2012 Olympics

The entire estate was the subject of a
compulsory purchase order A compulsory purchase order (CPO; , ) is a legal function in the United Kingdom and Ireland that allows certain bodies to obtain land or property without the consent of the owner. It may be enforced if a proposed development is considered one for p ...
by the
London Development Agency The London Development Agency (LDA) was from July 2000 until 2012 the regional development agency for the London region in England. A functional body of the Greater London Authority, its purpose was to drive sustainable economic growth within ...
to make way for the athletes' village in the 2012 London Olympics site: indeed almost all the inhabitants cleared from the Olympic site were students at the adjacent
UEL UEL can refer to: * UEFA Europa League, the second tier of European club football * United Envirotech, a company based in Singapore * University of East London, a public University in London, UK * ''Universidade Estadual de Londrina'' (State Univer ...
halls of residence or Clays Lane residents. Many residents were extremely vocal in their opposition of the compulsory purchase order, and several protests were held in nearby Stratford.Displaced by London's Olympics - The Guardian newspaper - article by Charlotte Baxter, 2 June 2008
/ref> A group of tenants gained leave to hold a
public inquiry A tribunal of inquiry is an official review of events or actions ordered by a government body. In many common law countries, such as the United Kingdom, Republic of Ireland, Ireland, Australia and Canada, such a public inquiry differs from a royal ...
into the decision to compulsorily purchase the estate, which was held in August 2006. This was, however, dismissed in a High Court ruling on 30 May 2007. All 430 residents of the Clay’s Lane Housing Cooperative were issued with orders to leave by July 2007. Residents were promised equivalent, if not better, housing (as well as £8,500 for the loss of their homes and relocation expenses). However it was reported that early movers found this was not the case, and some feared that dispersal to sites across East London would mean the end of the unusually close community links in the estate. Surveys after the evictions found that residents particularly missed the communal areas, facilities and social life of the Clays Lane Estate, and often found their new accommodation anonymous. There was further controversy when 11 'short life' tenants in the Peabody Nags Head estate were evicted to make way for residents displaced from Clays Lane.


Demolition

Demolition of the estate, and of the small artificial hill that it sat on, began in September 2007. A report in
The Guardian ''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'', and changed its name in 1959. Along with its sister papers ''The Observer'' and ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardian'' is part of the Gu ...
newspaper referred to several documents and surveys suggesting that
Thorium Thorium is a weakly radioactive metallic chemical element with the symbol Th and atomic number 90. Thorium is silvery and tarnishes black when it is exposed to air, forming thorium dioxide; it is moderately soft and malleable and has a high me ...
isotope had been dumped on the site in 1959, and that a radiological survey of the area carried out by WS Atkins in 1993 had revealed "the presence of elevated levels of adiationactivity above the general background level for that area". The Guardian report also referred to an internal memorandum written by the
Lee Valley Regional Park Authority Lee Valley Regional Park Authority (LVRPA) is a statutory body that is responsible for managing and developing the long, Lee Valley Regional Park. The park was established by Parliament of the United Kingdom in 1967. The headquarters of the a ...
valuer and estates surveyor in 1972, that recommended that the ground over the waste should not be disturbed without further tests. Estate residents, concerned that dangerous materials might be extracted, had unsuccessfully tried to secure a court injunction to stop ground tests being carried out before they were rehoused.Residents' fears of radioactive waste on site of Olympic village
-The Guardian Newspaper, Ian Griffiths, 26 January 2007
No trace now remains of the estate, however the
Museum of London The Museum of London is a museum in London, covering the history of the UK's capital city from prehistoric to modern times. It was formed in 1976 by amalgamating collections previously held by the City Corporation at the Guildhall, London, Gui ...
holds a photographic record of the Clays Lane Estate and the adjacent travellers site, part of a project to document the site prior to its demolition.


Contemporary housing cooperatives

Although the housing cooperative model never developed extensively in London, a few other cooperative housing projects were trialled at around the same time as Clays Lane, with similar aims and organisational structures. A comparable (but smaller) housing co-operative with 40 flats and 20 shared houses was created south side of the river Thames at the Thamesmead Housing Co-operative, however it was dissolved in the 1990s. In
Deptford Deptford is an area on the south bank of the River Thames in southeast London, within the London Borough of Lewisham. It is named after a ford of the River Ravensbourne. From the mid 16th century to the late 19th it was home to Deptford Dock ...
the Deptford Housing Co-operative - built in 1978 with 138 residences - as well as the
Sanford Housing Co-operative Sanford Housing Co-operative or Sanford Co-op is a housing co-operative located in south east London. Currently home to around 120 people, it is the first purpose-built housing co-operative in the United Kingdom and has run without interruption ...
- built in 1973 with 146 residences - nearby are still operating as a housing cooperatives.Deptford Housing Coop
Description of creation and operation


References


Sources


Housing Corporation
{dead link, date=August 2017 , bot=InternetArchiveBot , fix-attempted=yes Press release: Housing Corporation announces Clays Lane transfer
UK Housing
Clays lane stock to transfer to the Peabody Trust
Games Monitor
A peer gets confused about Clays Lane
Games Monitor
Clays Lane Housing Co-op, Residents Survey Report for the London Development Agency, April 2005
Spectacle Catalogue
Olympic Stories. Clays Lane-2006
Newham sports
Reference to the Clays Lane Community Football scheme

on the Clays Lane eviction case
East End Howler
Article on page 2: LDA London Destruction Agency
They Work For You
Olympic Games 2012: Housing Housing cooperatives in the United Kingdom 2012 Summer Olympics Housing associations based in England Housing organisations based in London Former buildings and structures in the London Borough of Newham