As one of the leading charitable housing associations regenerating Lambeth, we were surprised to be omitted from your interesting feature on the borough (3 December, page 26).

Our work on the Moorlands estate in Brixton and in Clapham has shown the rewards of getting stuck into tough neighbourhoods and turning them round. We believe you need the ethos, capacity, leadership, courage and tenacity to support government policy on urban regeneration.

In terms of community development we also believe you must stick around after you have built somewhere to ensure the community remains somewhere for residents and visitors to be proud of and impressed with. It is important not to develop and run. You must offer community-added value, which ordinary developers do not.

You must introduce decent homes and decent households to the areas you work in, remain accountable and intervene when things go wrong.

Paul Wellings, group media manager Metropolitan Housing Trust Group

Source

Housing Today