Hundreds of residents have been “left to rot” next to boarded up houses with cockroaches, mice and mould on an estate earmarked for regeneration, a London Assembly member has warned.
The Lesnes Estate in Thamesmead, part of the brutalist 1960s estate where Stanley Kubrick’s Clockwork Orange was filmed, has become a ghost town with roughly a quarter of residents still living there.
Bexley Council gave outline planning permission to the Peabody housing association in October 2022 to replace 816 current homes with 2,778 new ones.
But plans to revamp the area have stagnated and the estate, once dubbed “a town of tomorrow” by its Greater London Council architects, with residents left “living in limbo” next to locked up homes.
Residents have previously held a sit-in protests at the Lesnes Estate (Joe Coughlan)
Zoë Garbett told Sir Sadiq Khan during Mayor’s Question Time on Thursday: “There are around 200 people still living there but it has been partially emptied.
“Residents are living next to boarded-up houses, when people move out the kitchens are torn out and they are sometimes just left on the estate.
“The walls have been knocked down, there is lots of fly-tipping and littering. Mice, cockroaches, damp and mould but all these issues haven’t been picked up and looked at.”
The London Assembly member also warned the residents had been “left for about a decade” waiting to learn how the estate regeneration will end.
She continued: “Their regeneration has completely stalled. They feel like they have been left to rot with this stress and uncertainty hanging over them as well.
“They have really spoken about how this has impacted their health. So I am concerned you are not hearing that direct experience.”
Residents from the Lesnes Estate handed a petition to the Mayor of London Sadiq Khan on Thursday asking him to call in the next phase of development at the estate.
In response, Sir Sadiq said he would ask the deputy mayor for housing to look into the issue and vowed to work with Ms Garbett to try and look into the circumstances residents are facing.
Residents on Lesnes Estate had previously resisted plans for their homes to be demolished and have warned the decision could result in homelessness, debt and carbon pollution.
Pictures from September show multiple cars on the estate with broken windows as well as a variety of fly-tipped household items including mattresses, bathtubs, chests of drawers and armchairs left in both communal areas and gardens of derelict homes.
Peabody has been contacted for comment.