Calverley Close, Southend Road
We’ve just been informed that a public consultation event is happening on Tuesday 26th October concerning the entire redevelopment of the estate, after residents voted over the summer in favour of complete regeneration.
Built in the 1980s near the brow of Beckenham Hill, the estate currently has around 200 homes and is operated by Riverside Housing Association, which manages the Borough’s council housing. They also operate Coleridge House, a Victorian villa at 79 Bromley Road, which is proposed for demolition and redevelopment.
According to information published in April by Riverside, the existing homes at Calverley Close are proposed to be demolished and replaced with several new blocks ranging in height from three to seven stories. The total number of new homes would be 358, half of which would be allocated for private sale. The remainder would be for social rent. Demolition and construction would be phased over four stages of redevelopment.
A planning application is expected to be submitted after Christmas.
Riverside’s latest information showing current proposals, consultation process and timescale for the redevelopment can be found here: https://calverleyclose.co.uk/
The Public Consultation Event starts at 18:30 on Tuesday 26th October on Zoom. You can participate in the consultation event by clicking the link below, a few minutes before this time: www.tinyurl.com/CalverleyClose26October
Copers Cope Area Residents' Association (CCARA) & West Beckenham Residents' Association (WBRA) 
Totally agree with the above comment ‘Scandal Revealed’.
I have already written my own comment, too.
*If this proposal goes ahead, we will be losing even more true affordable housing.
*There will not be enough room for the parking of residents’ vehicles.
*Can families with young children; elderly people; and those people with disabilities all be guaranteed ground floor homes? This does not seem likely.
SCANDAL UNCOVERED
There is considerable concern over Riverside’s claim that ‘residents voted in favour’ of the demolition of their homes. Canvassing amongst residents in occupation immediately before the vote revealed that the majority were not in favour of this action for a number of legitimate and worrying reasons. Letters were formally sent to Bromley Council and other bodies, shortly before the ballot, about the various deceptions and concealments by Riverside, but have been completely ignored.
It is known that Riverside’s claimed majority resident vote in favour of demolition was obtained by including persons who are no longer living on the estate, and by deceiving those who are , but who were denied proper representation and information. Residents were consistently refused, over years of alleged ‘consultation’, any opportunity to meet as a community and discuss openly and honestly with Riverside and with each other the true implications of Riverside’s ‘redevelopment’ ambitions. Riverside has calculatedly refused to re-let dwellings which have become empty in recent times, which has lowered the number of on site voters. Some who have already moved away have still retained the right to vote. Riverside has lied and concealed the realities of the situation throughout. It refused to engage with the ‘Resident Steering Group’ which it set up itself, after that group, having researched independently, made known that in fact very no new dwellings will be for genuine social rent, and that Riverside has lied to existing tenants by claiming that existing residents can carry over their very favourable secure tenancies into new dwellings, which is not legally possible. Once existing secure tenants die or move out, their homes will no longer be for social rent. What was once conceived and thought of as secure and economical ‘council housing’ will cease to exist. Riverside wants to get rid of such tenancies even sooner by demolishing such homes – the only way of unilaterally terminating them. Riverside has lied about the increased housing costs which will fall to any existing tenants who might be eventually rehoused on site (unlikely). Riverside has failed to acknowledge that in these cases of alleged ‘redevelopment’ it is normal for the commercial developer (in this instance Countryside) to conduct ‘financial viability assessments’, following which it progressively claims that building costs have increased such that it can no longer afford to include the ‘affordable housing’ previously promised – successive assessments which gradually reduce such ‘affordable housing’ to no ‘affordable’ dwellings at all – as with Langtry House at 79 Bromley Road, plans for which site are currently being criticised here for just this reason.
In summary, Riverside is planning to destroy the many homes in Calverley Close which have historically been, and still should be, social housing for the borough’s low income residents and homeless register. Church Army Housing originally acquired this estate and other dwellings, Calverley only as recently as 1978, for that sole purpose. Riverside, a Liverpool housing magnate, acquired all of that South London housing by ‘merger’, knowing all along that it would later demolish the existing social housing and develop all these valuable inner and outer London sites for private profit, which it is now doing.
Residents who have lived in these properties for decades will be eventually made homeless after suffering years of living on building sites (and still paying regularly increasing rents for this privilege!) purely for landlords’ and developers’ profit. What used to be ‘council housing’ for low income families is deliberately being nationally eroded through its acquisition by greedy, blatantly profiteering, basically corporate housing associations like Riverside, which are legally allowed to perpetrate these scandals, yet still be granted ‘charitable status’.
Residents can only hope that their local council, and neighbours of those affected by this scandal, will do all they can to object to and prevent it.