Heygate: A Natural History
Capitalism both destroys and creates places, but the places it creates seem always, at least to begin with, less substantial, less rich, than the places it destroys.
— Patrick Keiller, Popular Science1
The Heygate Estate in Elephant and Castle, south London, was built on the site of Victorian tenements damaged and destroyed by World War II bombing, and its construction was completed in 1974. Despite a crisis of genuinely affordable housing within the area and in London as a whole, and largely ignoring protestations from residents about the lack of consultation over the proposed redevelopment plans, Southwark Council pressed ahead and gradually ‘decanted’ the 3,000 residents of the estate between the late 2000s and 20132. The estate and its land was then sold to Australian property developer Lendlease, and by late 2014 most of the buildings had been demolished in order to make way for ‘Elephant Park’, a new property development set to be completed by 2025. The destruction of the Heygate has been one of the most prominent in a series of controversial ‘regeneration’ projects in recent years, projects which have seen the demolition of a number of late twentieth century social housing estates across London and the commensurate net loss of affordable housing for its population.
The drawn out nature of the process to remove the tenants and leaseholders meant that for several years it was not possible to enclose the larger part of the estate with the usual security fence that one would expect to see around such depopulated sites awaiting redevelopment; as the exodus slowed from a flood to a trickle, the empty spaces between the buildings were re-populated by guerrilla gardeners, graffiti artists, skateboarders and parkour enthusiasts, as well as photographers, film-makers, and other assorted ruin-tourists. The estate was used as a backdrop for films such as Harry Brown, which (anonymously) depicted the Heygate as a crime-ridden ghetto; bands shot their music videos among the forbidden walkways3; and newspapers published images of ‘Derelict Heygate’.4 Such representations of ‘decaying’ housing estates can be powerful agents in the manipulation of public discourse around social housing in the UK.
The Heygate still harboured a significant quantity of structurally sound and inhabitable residences, but following the council’s decision to redevelop the site instead of renovating the buildings5, they slowly decayed and the spaces between them began to fall into ruin. In this transitional state of abandonment, and in scenes reminiscent of the Richard Jefferies novel After London6, drifts of dead leaves piled up along pathways and against brick walls, while small bushes and seedlings thrust through the concrete and paving stones. In his essay Dead Cities: A Natural History, Mike Davis offers a vision of war-ravaged urban landscapes, which result in ‘the creation of new urban flora sometimes referred to as “Nature II”.’7 It does not seem too fantastical to draw a parallel between Davis’s descriptions of scientific study into the effects of the bombing of European cities in WWII on urban ecosystems, and the violent disruption that the continued reconfiguration of our cities causes to established urban terrain, leading not only to the destruction of local communities, but also to the unnecessary destruction of natural habitats and life that may take decades, if ever, to recover.
Overlooking the estate, until its inevitable destruction along with the buildings themselves, was an ‘urban forest’8 containing hundreds of mature trees. In 2013 Southwark Council admitted that at least 283 of the 406 London Planes, False Acacias, Goat Willows, Norway maples and other mature trees living on the estate would be felled to make way for redevelopment.9 Lendlease claim10 that new saplings will be planted in their wake, but it will be many years before they reach maturity again; and given that the developers have already broken promises around issues such as the percentage of ‘affordable’ housing that will be constructed post-Heygate11, there is no guarantee that the promised number of trees will ever be replanted – nor that those that are will not simply be cut down again another 40 years from now to make way for the next cycle of demolition and construction. As of early 2018 barely a handful of the trees which were planted here in the 1970s still exist.
1. Keiller, P. (2008) Popular Science. In: Kiendl, A. (2008) Informal Architectures: Space and Contemporary Culture.
2. https://southwarknotes.wordpress.com/heygate-estate/heygate-timeline/
3. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VM5nLJ524QU
4. https://www.guardian.co.uk/artanddesign/gallery/2013/may/09/derelict-heygate-estate-south-london
5. https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2014/jun/04/is-demolition-ever-the-best-way-to-regenerate
6. Jefferies, R. (2008) After London. Standard Publications Inc.
7. Davis, M. (2002) Dead Cities: A Natural History. In: Davis, M. (2002) Dead Cities and Other Tales.
8. https://elephantandcastleurbanforest.com
9. http://www.london-se1.co.uk/news/view/6545
10. https://www.elephantpark.co.uk/elephant-park/green-spaces
11. https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2014/jun/04/is-demolition-ever-the-best-way-to-regenerate
— Patrick Keiller, Popular Science1
The Heygate Estate in Elephant and Castle, south London, was built on the site of Victorian tenements damaged and destroyed by World War II bombing, and its construction was completed in 1974. Despite a crisis of genuinely affordable housing within the area and in London as a whole, and largely ignoring protestations from residents about the lack of consultation over the proposed redevelopment plans, Southwark Council pressed ahead and gradually ‘decanted’ the 3,000 residents of the estate between the late 2000s and 20132. The estate and its land was then sold to Australian property developer Lendlease, and by late 2014 most of the buildings had been demolished in order to make way for ‘Elephant Park’, a new property development set to be completed by 2025. The destruction of the Heygate has been one of the most prominent in a series of controversial ‘regeneration’ projects in recent years, projects which have seen the demolition of a number of late twentieth century social housing estates across London and the commensurate net loss of affordable housing for its population.
The drawn out nature of the process to remove the tenants and leaseholders meant that for several years it was not possible to enclose the larger part of the estate with the usual security fence that one would expect to see around such depopulated sites awaiting redevelopment; as the exodus slowed from a flood to a trickle, the empty spaces between the buildings were re-populated by guerrilla gardeners, graffiti artists, skateboarders and parkour enthusiasts, as well as photographers, film-makers, and other assorted ruin-tourists. The estate was used as a backdrop for films such as Harry Brown, which (anonymously) depicted the Heygate as a crime-ridden ghetto; bands shot their music videos among the forbidden walkways3; and newspapers published images of ‘Derelict Heygate’.4 Such representations of ‘decaying’ housing estates can be powerful agents in the manipulation of public discourse around social housing in the UK.
The Heygate still harboured a significant quantity of structurally sound and inhabitable residences, but following the council’s decision to redevelop the site instead of renovating the buildings5, they slowly decayed and the spaces between them began to fall into ruin. In this transitional state of abandonment, and in scenes reminiscent of the Richard Jefferies novel After London6, drifts of dead leaves piled up along pathways and against brick walls, while small bushes and seedlings thrust through the concrete and paving stones. In his essay Dead Cities: A Natural History, Mike Davis offers a vision of war-ravaged urban landscapes, which result in ‘the creation of new urban flora sometimes referred to as “Nature II”.’7 It does not seem too fantastical to draw a parallel between Davis’s descriptions of scientific study into the effects of the bombing of European cities in WWII on urban ecosystems, and the violent disruption that the continued reconfiguration of our cities causes to established urban terrain, leading not only to the destruction of local communities, but also to the unnecessary destruction of natural habitats and life that may take decades, if ever, to recover.
Overlooking the estate, until its inevitable destruction along with the buildings themselves, was an ‘urban forest’8 containing hundreds of mature trees. In 2013 Southwark Council admitted that at least 283 of the 406 London Planes, False Acacias, Goat Willows, Norway maples and other mature trees living on the estate would be felled to make way for redevelopment.9 Lendlease claim10 that new saplings will be planted in their wake, but it will be many years before they reach maturity again; and given that the developers have already broken promises around issues such as the percentage of ‘affordable’ housing that will be constructed post-Heygate11, there is no guarantee that the promised number of trees will ever be replanted – nor that those that are will not simply be cut down again another 40 years from now to make way for the next cycle of demolition and construction. As of early 2018 barely a handful of the trees which were planted here in the 1970s still exist.
1. Keiller, P. (2008) Popular Science. In: Kiendl, A. (2008) Informal Architectures: Space and Contemporary Culture.
2. https://southwarknotes.wordpress.com/heygate-estate/heygate-timeline/
3. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VM5nLJ524QU
4. https://www.guardian.co.uk/artanddesign/gallery/2013/may/09/derelict-heygate-estate-south-london
5. https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2014/jun/04/is-demolition-ever-the-best-way-to-regenerate
6. Jefferies, R. (2008) After London. Standard Publications Inc.
7. Davis, M. (2002) Dead Cities: A Natural History. In: Davis, M. (2002) Dead Cities and Other Tales.
8. https://elephantandcastleurbanforest.com
9. http://www.london-se1.co.uk/news/view/6545
10. https://www.elephantpark.co.uk/elephant-park/green-spaces
11. https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2014/jun/04/is-demolition-ever-the-best-way-to-regenerate