The Socialist 18 January 2017

Resist Trump

Labour's civil war continues - build a mass workers' party

Tories torn in two on single market

Resist Trump

Inaugurate the resistance

We can stop Trump's sexist agenda in its tracks

Mexico: Mass movement against "gasolinazo"

USA: Seattle activists win housebuilding programme

1917revolution.org website to launch

'Black alert' NHS: Demonstrate 4 March

Eight billionaires own as much as half humanity!

Pollution kills 600: fight for clean air!

Northern Ireland calls snap election: back Labour Alternative

Millwall FC move threat: Defend the Den - 'wall not Renewal

Billions in profit for Tesco, cuts and job losses for workers

Liverpool dockers and drivers protest "appalling lack of facilities"

Manchester: BA cabin crew pay strike

London: Taxi drivers gridlock City of London

Southern Rail strike continues

Unite the Union elections

PCS union national executive elections

The Socialist: read it, write it, sell it

Protesters surround Sheffield's cutting council

Fracking protest in Sherwood Forest

Residents protest at plans to close nine community centres

Anger at south east Kent Momentum meeting

Socialist Party national committee agrees document for congress

Why I joined the Socialist Party

Theatre review: high art and savage poverty in Bootle

John Berger: remarkable art of a contradictory socialist

Socialist artists invite others to exhibit work

PO Box 1398, Enfield EN1 9GT

020 8988 8777

[email protected]

Link to this page: https://www.socialistparty.org.uk/issue/932/24241

Search the site	Printable version

Home | The Socialist 18 January 2017 | Join the Socialist Party

Subscribe | Donate | Audio | PDF | ebook

Residents protest at plans to close nine community centres

Carnegie Library in Lambeth, children's music session, April 2016, photo James Ivens (Click to enlarge)

Hyde Housing Group announced plans to close nine community centres in the run up to the Christmas break. Two of the centres earmarked for closure by Hyde are in Lambeth and support 870,000 visits a year.

The buildings, their maintenance and the promise to keep them for the community were part of the stock transfer deal from Lambeth Council to Hyde around 20 years ago. Hyde now looks to be breaking its promises to residents by closing them down in its endless search for ever higher profits.

Hyde, like other housing associations, are now big business property developers more than providers of social housing. It has an operating profit of 27% and £95 million in the bank, but doesn't want to pay the £170,000 (or 20p a visit) annual operating costs for the two Lambeth community centres.

Instead, Hyde plans to bulldoze the Kennington Park Community Centre for luxury flats and lease the Stockwell Community Resource to a new provider - with absolutely no guarantees that its present service will be accommodated in the new deal.

Lambeth Council, with some of the highest areas of deprivation in the country, has delivered Tory cuts totalling a 56% reduction in spending since 2010. Predictably this has meant the closure of local services, including half of the libraries in the area. Now Hyde is following the council's lead.

Residents lobbied the head office of Hyde on 6 January and are demonstrating again on 21 January. Gather at Stockwell memorial gardens at 2pm and say no to Hyde. Show your support for our community centres before we say goodbye to what is left of local facilities.

Keep our centres open!