Will you Listen?

By Emma Dent Coad

 

Residents of Edenham Way next to Trellick Tower, which together form the remainder of Erno Goldfinger’s Cheltenham estate that the Council has failed to demolish, were delighted two weeks ago to discover that English Heritage had listed their properties at Grade II.

The campaign to list Edenham Way (ringed in red in axonometric below) began in 2008, when the Council – unknown to residents – had considered flattening their homes and redeveloping the site, conveniently next to the canal and beautiful community-run lateral park and wildlife garden, Meanwhile Gardens. Once the demolition plan was discovered, the highly resourceful residents found a number of ways to scupper it.  Many were original tenants who had lived there since being decanted from their neighbouring ‘slums’; some had subsequently bought their home under Right to Buy. These former ‘slum’ dwellers appreciate the quality of their homes and were not about to let the avaricious Council destroy them and the tight-knit community that houses three generations of local people, comprising innumerable nationalities working and living in harmony.

The very sad story of the Edenham Residential Care Home (hatched area below), a Goldfinger building in front of Trellick Tower, had hit residents hard. In 2006 the Council had ‘consulted’ on its future, and in a disgraceful episode that still turns my stomach, decided it was no longer fit for purpose. Residents were turned out, and whatever the Council says about how ‘sensitively’ it was done, half were dead within a year. Two stopped eating and starved to death. We know that because we went to the funerals. It was shocking, and it woke Edenham Way residents to the reality of what could happen to them.

 From an architectural point of view, the care home had formed a carefully planned balance to the massing of the two Trellick towers and the lower blocks and houses at Edenham Way. It was a foil to the striking Trellick, surrounded by lovely gardens and trees, a vital element for the elderly care home residents many of whom suffered dementia and were unable to potter freely around the neighbourhood. The buildings themselves – we were told by an architect who worked with Goldfinger – were designed as load-bearing structural shells so that internal walls could be reorganised at will to accommodate changing need. But the Council didn’t give a fig for this, their deterministic ‘consultation’ found its mark and the buildings were ground into the dirt despite our very best efforts, which included BBC News coverage with Tony Benn, myself chained to the gates, and countless heart-breaking intercessions between families and hard-faced officers.

From a social planning aspect, Cheltenham Estate was a 'cradle to grave' or Lifetime Neighbourhood; now it's a development opportunity.

By the time I caught up with  this latest episode in 2008, a group of Edenham Way residents had already started the process of listing. Within no time at all a petition against demolition had been published in Building Design magazine and had gone global. Architects, academics, students and Goldfinger aficionados around the world signed up in support of local residents, and in the face of this strength of feeling in 2010 the Council admitted defeat – for now.

Before I hear the grounds on which the Council wishes to challenge the Edenham Way listing, I would like to say the following:

 

While listing can be seen as a mixed blessing, it is not a curse. Listed buildings can be a positive force and can pay for themselves. This is not a fantasy; this is a fact.

Emma Dent Coad is a  Labour Councillor for the Golborne Ward. She has her own blog at http://emmadentcoad.blogspot.com     

 

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