Great Estates improvement plans - successful council estates revealed

20 November 2019

In 2018, as part of its new council plan, Southwark Council agreed to launch a Great Estates Guarantee so that every one of its 250 estates is clean, safe and cared for, and to give residents the resources to improve their estate, in agreement with the council.
Following this, The Great Estates programme was launched, with a vision to celebrate the borough’s estates, encourage integration and build on the care and respect tenants have for where they live.

Great Estates is formed of three components: The vision and approach, as set out in the council’s December 2018 cabinet report, The Great Estates Guarantee and commitments which help to ensure that the council and residents are working effectively together to make estates clean, safe and cared for, and the estate improvement plans. It was agreed that the initial approach would be to test the estate improvement plans through a number of pilot schemes.

In summer 2019, the council asked residents to submit their ideas for estate improvements, and it received an overwhelming response, with 388 proposals. Following a stringent process, where applications were judged against a list of criteria, which included location, funding history, diversity of projects and general need among many factors, and today, it has been confirmed that seven projects have been successful after that process.

In the north of the borough: Canada and Rockingham estates, in the centre - Elmington and Brandon estates and three in the south of the borough:  Rye Hill, Kingswood and Friary estates.  The proposals range from replanting and gardening projects,  painting and re-decoration works, measures and works to reduce antisocial behaviour,  better storage for buggies and bikes, refuse and recycling, cleaning and artworks such as murals.

Councillor Leo Pollock, cabinet member for Social Regeneration, Great Estates and New Council Homes, said: “I’m absolutely delighted that residents took the time to submit their proposals, there was a huge variety of suggestions and what we received proved to me how deeply people care about where they live, and that small improvements can drastically improve their quality of life. It was a tough selection process and all the ideas had great merit. We’re now at a point where we have a selection of estates across the borough to test the feasibility of the proposals and we look forward to working with residents to make what they asked for happen.”

The successful proposals will now be assessed for feasibility and costed, with plans to begin the pilot scheme in early spring. As well as the pilot scheme, further opportunities for estate improvement will happen across the borough. 

Page last updated: 20 November 2019