MP Jeremy Corbyn joined protesters outside the auction that saw the Highbury Park flat sold for £335,000

CAMPAIGNERS who picketed an auction where a housing association flat was sold off have warned that social housing must not be lost to the private market.

The Peabody flat in Highbury Park ended up selling for £335,000 as bidders gathered in the Vere Grand Connaught Rooms in Great Queen Street on Monday.

Outside, Islington Homes For All warned that homes like this could have been used to ease the long waiting lists for social housing.

“They’re selling off street properties in Islington when there are more than 14,000 people on the waiting list for social housing, and they’re not building back into the local area,” said Morag Gillie, one of the protesters who lives in Holloway.

The Highbury Park flat

“Because of the lack of social housing, families on the waiting list, even though they’re priority need because they have children, their main pathway into housing is in the private rental sector.

“If you’re in the private rented sector it’s a lifetime of poverty.”

The group has calculated that 47 Peabody properties have been auctioned off since 2020.

Earlier this month, the Tribune reported that there are over 1,000 homeless children in the borough, while Islington Council is on track to spend £2.6million on temporary accommodation for families without a home.

Islington North MP Jeremy Corbyn, who was at the protest, said: “We have a housing crisis. They should not be selling anything, they should be buying properties instead.

“It’s part of social cleansing of London, it’s driving the working class out of inner-city areas by reducing the amount of social housing, and when Peabody says they’re going to invest in further social housing, it won’t be in Islington. It’ll be somewhere that it’s much cheaper to do so.

Protester Morag Gillie

“We need more properties in Islington.”

Jenny Kassman, a Finsbury Park resident and member of Islington Homes For All, said: “Every single social home is desperately needed. Housing associations seem to have absolutely turned their backs on any social accountability that they might have. It’s completely unjust.”

Campaigners want to raise awareness and encourage people to rise up against the privatisation of housing.

“It’s a public scandal, and people aren’t aware of it. Peabody says that this housing is dilapidated, so selling them off is the best course of action. They get the money for the sell-off and they use that money to build new properties – but probably somewhere else,” said Richard Hope, who lives in St Mary’s ward.

Jenny Kassman of Islington Homes For All group

A Peabody spokesperson said: “On top of the 5,000 homes we have in Islington, we are building more than 500 social rented homes for people on the council’s housing waiting list.

“We are a not-for-profit housing provider and reinvest all our income into providing homes and services. We do sell a small number of empty properties which are financially unsustainable in the long-term. When deciding whether to sell a vacant property such as this one, we’ll look at its condition and the likely costs of maintaining it over 60 years. This includes the cost of making the property energy efficient and sustainable for the future.

“For a small number of homes, we find these costs will be too high, and that was the case with this property. We invested almost £7m in improving and upgrading our homes in Islington last year, and plan to spend a further £39m in the borough over the next five years.

“We’ve also increased the number of social-rent homes by more than 300 in Islington since 2018.”