BY ZOE JEWELL, EDITOR
Lambeth council is to seek an injunction against the residents of Carlton Mansions tomorrow morning.
Residents of the Carlton Mansions Housing Co-operative (CMHC) expressed anger over receiving only one day’s notice after the council delivered a letter to the Co-operative today, informing them that the council will seek an injunction “compelling all occupiers of Carlton Mansions to vacate the building.”
Some of the residents plan to attend Lambeth County Court for the hearing tomorrow at 10am.
An injunction is one of the most draconian types of order you can seek and a judge will only grant it in very serious cases. If the injunction is granted, depending on the wording, it may be that residents will be arrested if they enter the building.
Members of the Carlton Mansions Housing Co-operative, founded in 1979, were told to leave the 122-year-old building earlier this month after a fire report advised the building was unsafe. The council demanded “residents vacate the building as a priority”.
Cllr Rachel Heywood told the Brixton Blog last week: “I have to be clear that we cannot allow anybody to continue to live in a building…that has been judged to be ‘intolerable’ in terms of fire risk.”
Housing Co-operative members, who have lived in the building for decades and have co-operated with the council in the past, are concerned about being forced to leave their homes with no notice. A CMHC member told the Brixton Blog: “we have not been given proper opportunity to defend ourselves due to short notice”.
The Co-operative was also sent a leaflet for temporary hostel accommodation which would cost £268.53 a week plus an amenity charge of £18.25 for a room.
In recent months, locals across the borough have been protesting against Lambeth Council’s current policy of evicting housing co-operatives and selling on its short-life housing stock.
Co-operative members have asked for help from the local community to help them store their possessions, spare rooms or legal help. Please email info@brixtonblog.com if you wish to contact the Co-op.
Our feature on the community at Carlton Mansions is here. You can contribute to the urban75 thread here.
[…] Lambeth Council seeks injunction against Carlton Mansions […]
There is no conceivable way the fire risk in this building is ‘intolerable’. These Victorian blocks are solid, nothing like the tall system-built mid 20th century stuff. With 3 staircases and 18 residents that makes 6 people per exit – up to the roof and down again. (Compare about 160 people and one central staircase at the dreadful Lakanal House.) Also no-one is more than 4 floors above ground. The people who died agt Lakanal were on the 11th floor, out of reach of ladders. Lambeth should open up access from the rear of the Carlton Mansions site to their carpark if they are really concerned.
Why have you not got a protest going? You can do it through Avaaz. If you get enough signatures it goes to Parliament. I would have signed it.