They can always play in the street
At least one multimillion-pound housing development in London is segregating the children of less well-off tenants from those of wealthier homebuyers by blocking them from some communal play areas.
Guardian Cities has discovered that developer Henley Homes has blocked social housing residents from using shared play spaces at its Baylis Old School complex on Lollard Street, south London. The development was required to include a mix of “affordable” and social rental units in order to gain planning permission.
Henley marketed the award-winning 149-home development, which was built in 2016 on the site of a former secondary school, as inclusive and family-friendly. It said the “common areas are there for the use of all the residents”.
But the designs were altered after planning permission was granted to block the social housing tenants from accessing the communal play areas.
“Just kidding about the ‘for the use of all the residents’ part!”
Salvatore Rea, who lives in a rented affordable flat with his wife, Daniella, and their three children, says the residents of the complex are very aware of the disparity. “My children are friends with all the other children on this development – but when it is summer they can’t join them.”
Well if the children would just get jobs as stockbrokers they’d be welcome on the playground.
Dinah Bornat, an architect and expert on child-friendly design who advises planners, local authorities and the mayor of London, called the development “segregation” and said she has raised it with senior planners at the Greater London Authority.
“Everyone I have told, at the highest level, has been absolutely horrified to hear that our planning system is not robust enough to stop this happening,” she said.
“To see hedges where plans showed gates, to see a segregated small play area for the social housing residents, while their children directly overlook a much nicer play area is appalling.”
She says it is an abuse of the planning process if developers make such fundamental alterations after the plans have been through a public consultation.
“They are allowed to make minor changes,” she noted. “But what they have done here is altered the layout to block access to social housing residents. We have to ask: was this a cynical move?”
Changing the design after approval, cynical? Oh surely not.
But…but…but…if the rich kids had to play with the poor kids, they might get, like, poor cooties, or something. It might be too, too horrifying, and scar their poor little psyches forever.
The rich always get their way, don’t they? And most of them live under the illusion that they worked harder than the rest of us to earn that.
It seems that the publicity has shamed Henley Homes into a reversal. Not that they’re calling it a reversal, they’re claiming that there was never going to be any segregation, and the bartier wall was only ever to….erm….to……ah, mark the boundary, that’s it, it was only ever intended to mark a boundary between the two developments.
Never mind that it was only ever one development, and that the wall cut off the privately owned and shared-ownership properties within that development from the social housing properties, it was (cross fingers behind back) always intended to be a play area for all of the children….honest to God and all that (uncross fingers; hope nobody saw).
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/amp/uk-england-london-47720752