8th January 2023 Community
From the Bonnington Centre Archive…
“For thirty years, Bonnington Square/Vauxhall Grove have been blighted by the Vauxhall Manor School Extension Plan. This was abandoned in 1983, and the Vauxhall Housing Co-operative, anticipating this, obtained a grant from the Inner City Partnership to carry out this study.
“Vauxhall Housing Co-operative was formed in 1981 by squatters in the area in an attempt to secure their homes and to save the houses, many of which at that point were empty and decaying rapidly. During the previous decade the ILEA had bought 79 of the 116 houses in the area and by 1981 were systematically rehousing tenants and boarding up or bricking up the houses.
“With such a high proportion of the housing in its ownership, the ILEA needs to give careful consideration to the best means of withdrawing from the area, taking into consideration its own political and practical interests and those of the local community. This Feasibility Study in the Vauxhall Housing Co-operative’s case for the retention of all the housing as fair or council rented accommodation. It sets out to demonstrate the feasibility of this argument, and draws on successful initiatives to improve the environment and establish a permanent co-operative in order to argue that the only promise of the area’s full restoration lies in support for community-based initiatives.”
