About
What this campaign is about Why it matters The core issues are clear: Viability is being used as a decision technology, allowing financial assumptions to carry more weight than housing need and community continuity. Affordable housing is treated as residual, reduced to what can be “made to work” after other priorities are protected. Heritage and townscape language is mobilised as a moral script, sometimes reframing harm as “improvement” and positioning demolition as care. The social costs of clearance are minimised, even where evidence of displacement risk is strong—especially for smaller businesses and marginalised communities. What we are calling for Regeneration without removal: redevelopment must not be allowed to function as a clearance programme. Genuinely affordable housing aligned to local need: not a tokenised minimum shaped by financial modelling. A real right to remain for traders and residents: including binding commitments on affordability, tenure security, and practical routes back. Transparent viability and land value assumptions: full disclosure, challengeable inputs, and a planning balance that does not treat profit as fixed while communities bear the risk. A planning outcome that treats social harm as material: displacement is not an “externality”—it is the core impact. How you can help Join the campaign and share it widely. Support community-led monitoring, evidence gathering and public accountability. Amplify the voices of traders and residents most exposed to displacement. Help pressure decision-makers to prioritise housing need, continuity, and a meaningful right to remain.
A major redevelopment proposal for the Aylesham Centre has become a public test of what “regeneration” now means in London: whether a living high-street economy and long-standing communities can survive redevelopment shaped primarily by land value expectations, investor return, and viability assessments that treat affordable housing as the adjustable variable.
This campaign responds to a familiar pattern in contemporary planning: regeneration presented as renewal, while the practical outcome is displacement—of traders, residents, social infrastructure, and the everyday uses that make a place function as a neighbourhood rather than a property portfolio.
Campaign Info
| Area, City, Region: | Peckham / Rye Lane, London Borough of Southwark, London, UK |
|---|---|
| Status: | Active |
