Sit-in bid to scupper council house sales

Teenagers and pensioners are among dozens of locals who swooped on the houses, mostly traditional Victorian terrace homes, during an open viewing day at the weekend.

At the end of the viewing, the protesters refused to leave. They were still there this morning as four of the homes were due to be auctioned off.

The auctioneer, Savills, said the sale would go ahead. The squatters are angry that Lewisham council is selling the three- and four-bedroom houses for as little as £130,000 and say that with improvements they could fetch as much as £400,000 on the open market.

The council claims the homes are run down and too expensive to refurbish. But Ray Woolford, one of the protesters, insisted they need relatively little spent on them and the sale would only exacerbate the area's housing crisis, with 17,000 people on the council waiting list.

He said: "The council claim it would cost them £40,000 per house. But even if you spend that it's still cheaper than using taxpayers' money to put people into private sector housing. This is only making our housing crisis worse."

The residents, aged from 17 to 76, are members of the Lewisham People Before Profit protest group.
They made their move on Saturday when the homes were opened up to the public.

Posing as potential buyers, they went in towards the end of the open session and refused to leave.

"We asked the council to let local unemployed people be trained to refurbish houses," said Mr Woolford, an estate agent who also runs a New Cross community café called Come The Revolution.

He hopes the occupation will scupper the sale, claiming that occupied council properties cannot be sold. "Who would want to buy a squat?" he added.