Southwark Council - Why Didn't That Happen?

42% of land in Southwark was owned by the council at one point in time. Now, if you were a council who was interested in housing, ordinary people could say, look, this could be denser. Also, it could be more of a mixed community. And we want to make everyone's flats a bit nicer. Why didn't that happen? Well, it's interesting, really, because something quite different almost did happen. But there were very different plans for the hey gate initially, which involved a lot of community participation and consultation. It was just decided when I think the lib Dems took over the council in 2004 not to pursue that approach.