De Beauvoir Estate

• The plans for the first phase of the new homes on the De Beauvoir Estate include around 305 new homes at 5 sites:
• the depot located at the corner of Downham Road and Southgate Road
• 81 Downham Road (formerly the temporary site of Hackney New Primary School) and the adjacent ball court and Tenants and Residents Association building
  Balmes Road podium garages
• the depot located at the corner of Downham Road and De Beauvoir Road
• the car parking spaces on the corner of Downham Road and Hertford Road

We’re aiming for 70% of these homes to be available for social rent and shared ownership, with the rest available for outright sale – this would help to pay for them with little government funding for social housing.

The social rent homes will be allocated to families on our housing waiting list, with priority for residents in priority need living on the De Beauvoir Estate.

The shared ownership and outright sale homes will be sold by our in-house sales team, Hackney Sales, in accordance with our sales and marketing principles.

They are prioritised for people living and working in Hackney who are unable to afford to buy a home outright but are unlikely to be prioritised for social housing.

We’re also considering whether we could deliver a second phase of around 100 further new homes – plus a new neighbourhood housing office, local shops and workspace in one coordinated development – by demolishing some other existing buildings.

This could include demolishing:

• the Queensbridge and De Beauvoir neighbourhood housing office at 31 De Beauvoir Road
• the Hackney Council depot on Balmes Road
• Trinity Court
• commercial units at 19, 21, 23, 25, 27 and 29 De Beauvoir Road and 57, 59, 61, 63 and 65 Downham Road

If any demolition of homes did go ahead, the existing five secure Council tenants in Trinity Court would be guaranteed the right to return to a new, modern home at the same type of social rent, with one leaseholder offered a fair deal and compensation.

The plans for new homes are part of a coordinated investment in the estate, which includes:

• hundreds of new kitchens and bathrooms installed for existing residents
• better public spaces, drainage and security
  refurbishment of Fermain Court and the Rose Lipman Building
• a new home for the De Beauvoir Estate tenants and residents association

We’ve appointed award winning architects Henley Halebrown, Stephen Taylor and Vogt Landscape to develop designs for the first phase of new homes.

We’ll soon appoint an architect team to progress ideas for the second phase of new homes.

We’ve set up a dedicated steering group made up of local residents, chaired by Councillor James Peters, which works independently with the architects to ensure residents’ ambitions are at the heart of the design process.

If you could be directly affected by redevelopment plans, please speak to your independent tenant and leaseholder advisors, PPCR.

Throughout the design process we’re hosting lots of opportunities for you to have your say and ensure your views and knowledge feed into the plans.

We’ve also spoken directly to residents and businesses who could be affected by any redevelopment plans to reassure them and explain the guarantees we would offer them if any proposals did go ahead.

Over the last year we’ve held two phases of consultation with residents on the proposals for the first phase of new homes – culminating in a week of events in November where we introduced proposals to increase the number of homes to around 185, including an additional site at Hertford Road.

We’ll update residents on the progress on both these plans and the potential second phase of new homes in early 2020.