A Southwark Council document seen by the 35% Campaign numbers the total of empty homes on the Aylesbury estate at 974. Forty-eight homes are also listed as being squatted, but it is not clear whether these are in addition to the void homes. In either case, the figures mean that over a third of the estate's original number of 2,700 homes, when it was built back in the 1970's are empty. It also approaches twice the total number of new-build social rent homes let in the borough in 2024/25. [^1]
The document is dated the 14 July 2025 and lists the number of voids for each phase of the estate's regeneration, which is now entering its twenty-seventh year [^2]. Phase 2C has 254 voids; Phase 3, 207 voids and Phase 4, 141 voids.
The highest number of voids though is for Phase 2B, the next scheduled for redevelopment. The Phase 2B blocks (Padbury, Ravenstone, Wendover, Winslow) have 372 voids, almost the entire number of dwellings. Southwark Council's planning committee approved Notting Hill Genesis' proposals for the phase back in June, earlier this year, but the s106 agreement that seals the approval has not yet been concluded.
The total number of voids is an increase on the 713 figure of January 2024, with 600 vacant more than 2 years, as reported in a recent Southwark News article.
Notting Hill Genesis fail to deliver
The same Southwark News article contains the claim by Notting Hill Genesis (NHG) that, as 'proud partners with Southwark' they have 'so far delivered more than 700 new homes, of which 85% are affordable housing...', without making it clear that most of these are in fact both funded and provided by Southwark Council, through a bail-out of the First Development Site (FDS), in July 2020. Through this deal the Council took over two of the three FDS plots (FDS A & B), at a cost of over £200m, leaving FDS C to Notting Hill. FDS C will provide just 56 social rent units, 75 shared-ownership and 190 private homes. Leaving FDS C with NHG also denies Southwark important revenue for cross subsidising affordable and social rented housing.
All-importantly, NHG has delivered very little affordable housing, particularly social rented housing. Despite holding an outline planning permission since 2015, and aside from the FDS, Notting Hill Genesis has only completed the 122 homes on Plot 18, and just 23 of these are social rented.
The table below gives a full account of the social rent delivery of the regeneration so far, according to planning documents. It should be noted that while these show Southwark Council providing 301 social rented homes, it has pledged that all 581 units of FDS A and B will be council homes.
While council tries to help homeless.....
The large number of empty council homes on the Aylesbury should be seen in the context of our stark housing crisis. There are 19,586 households on Southwark Council's housing waiting list and 4,184 households in temporary accommodation, including 5,076 children, according to Southwark's Homelessness Strategy June 2025. [^3]
The Strategy very sensibly puts building more affordable homes as the top means of reducing homelessness, but its claim that Southwark has built 3000 council homes takes no account of the large number that have been demolished or decanted in the name of regeneration, including the Aylesbury's 977 units - see our blogpost on new council homes for further details.
In any event, the fall in council housing stock is well illustrated by a graph from the Strategy, which shows a fall of 527 dwellings from 2018 to 2021. This continues the longer term decline from over 55,000 council homes since 1994.
The Strategy also notes that it has £11m from the Local Authority Housing Fund to buy-back former council homes and to invest in empty homes on the Aylesbury, while other homelessness initiative funding for 2025/26 totals £14.6m.
......developers dump affordable housing
But while Southwark and other councils do their limited best to help the homeless, developers seem determined to make matters worse. Led by the House Builders Federation, developers have mounted a strong lobbying campaign to reduce the amount of affordable housing required from them under the Mayor's London Plan.
According to the BBC News the HBF has called for the 35% affordable housing requirement to be reduced to 25%, in a report on housing development in London. The Financial Times and Evening Standard add that developers are demanding an even bigger cut, to between 10-15%. In Southwark both British Land and Berkeley Homes, the developers of Canada Water and the Aylesham Centre respectively are already seeking to reduce affordable housing to these levels.
And the developer's campaign looks like it is succeeding - a Guardian article by Aditya Chakraborttyreveals that the Steve Reed, the new government's new housing minister, is poised to reduce affordable housing requirements in London down to 20% and suspend CIL, the community infrastructure levy, which pays for the social infrastructure needed to support big new developments, such as new GP surgeries. [^4]
What we think - NHG 'Delay, baby, delay'
It is very clear that while we need as much affordable housing as quickly as possible, developers have other ideas.
And while Sir Kier Starmer pledged to 'Build, baby, build', as far as Notting Hill Genesis and the Aylesbury are concerned it seems to be more a case of 'Delay, baby, delay'. On top of its poor affordable housing delivery since 2015, NHG also embroiled itself in a misconceived attempt to build outside its planning permission. And despite losing the resulting High Court case, it is pressing on with this approach for Phase 2B. NHG have presented no concrete plans for Phase 3 and 4, the remaining two phases.
Meantime the very large number of current Aylesbury residents, estimated to be 1,300 in the Southwark News report, including new residents and those in temporary accommodation, are left in limbo on a 'near-derelict estate'.
In short, in terms of social rented housing, cost to the borough and living conditions on the Aylesbury, NHG's 'proud' partnership with Southwark Council is doing more harm than good; the Council must take steps to end it, as part of a serious reconsideration of the whole Aylesbury regeneration.
Footnotes:
[^1] 555 new build lets in 2024/2025 Southwark Council's Homelessness and Rough Sleeping Strategy 2025-2030 pg 9
[^2] The Aylesbury estate was awarded New Deal for Communities (NDC) status, with the expectation of government funding for a comprehensive demolition/redevelopment programme, in 1999.
[^3] Although marked as 'DRAFT' the link is to the report as approved by Southwark Council's Cabinet on 17 June 2025
[^4] See also John Harris 'A waiting list of thousands and just five new homes for social rent...' Guardian 19 Oct 2025