There’s No Place author Glyn Robbins on the Quaker Court estate: ‘This is our home, this is our community… Keep your hands off’

A HOUSING campaigner has called on activists on both sides of the Atlantic to learn from each other’s battles against gentrification and upmarket housing developments.

Glyn Robbins, manager at Quaker Court estate in Finsbury and leading member of the Islington Axe the Housing Act campaign, travelled across America to find out how the housing crisis is affecting working-class communities there.

In a new book, There’s No Place, published this week, Mr Robbins tells the story of resistance and struggle at local level through the voices of those fighting to save their homes.

Each chapter covers a different aspect of the “transatlantic housing crisis”, based on interviews in Boston, New York, Chicago, Seattle, San Francisco, New Orleans, Atlanta and Washington DC.

“The main narrative of the book is really [that] Americans [are] confronted by this massive housing crisis, trying to relate that to this country and trying to draw the parallels between massive overpriced houses in Manhattan and here in Old Street,” the 52-year-old said.

In San Francisco, centre of the Silicon Valley tech business hub, Mr Robbins said the displacement of working-class communities was similar to the situation in Old Street, dubbed Silicon Roundabout.

“I mention in the book the similarity between the ridiculous Silicon Roundabout branding here and what has been done in San Francisco,” he added. “It’s made housing completely unaffordable to people even on moderate incomes. I hear that here every day. Tenants who live on this estate are saying: ‘Where are my kids going to live?’”

Looking out the window of his office on the estate, Mr Robbins added: “From a Donald Trump perspective this is incredibly valuable real estate and I suppose the battle is to say to Trump and others who think like him: ‘No, it isn’t. This is our home, this is our community, where we want to be able to live and work. Keep your hands off.’”

Opposite Quaker Court is the site of the old Moorfield Primary School, which Southern Housing Association bought for £8.5m in 2009. In total, 11 flats in the new development currently being built on the site are for shared ownership. The 35 private homes have a price tag of between £735,000 – for a one-bedroom flat – and £1.7million for a four-bedroom duplex apartment.

Mr Robbins said: “That site should have been used for council housing. Some of the homes in there are going for three-quarters of a million and upwards.

“We have overcrowding on this estate, people with relatives who are in temporary accommodation. It’s rubbing it in their face that they and their children and family can’t live here. That’s why the book is called There’s No Place.”

He added: “Unless there’s a fundamental change of direction in this country, we are heading inexorably towards the American housing model in terms of policy, allowing the property juggernaut to let rip – and the fact that you’ve got a property billionaire sitting in the White House just illustrates that.

“If we can’t fundamentally change our approach to housing as a whole, including private renting, speculative investment and the development industry, and think about housing as a social issue rather than a private commodity issue, we’re heading down a very dangerous path.

“Part of what I’m trying to do in the book is to raise awareness of this and how global capitalism works across the oceans. We [housing activists] need to start thinking in those terms as well.”

There’s No Place, which has won praise from film director Ken Loach, can be ordered by emailing redroofpublishing1@gmail.com Price is £10 plus post and packaging. After costs, all proceeds will go to housing campaigns in the US and Britain.