Hackney Council’s new Green Party leadership has given its go-ahead for the next stage of the long-running regeneration of the Woodberry Down estate in the north of borough. It has done so expressing enthusiasm for the scheme and despite its approval almost certainly entailing current social housing tenants on the estate having to first live somewhere else before they can move into their new homes.
The Woodberry Down scheme is a huge council collaboration with developer Berkeley Homes that, since 2009, has slowly been replacing nearly 1,800 council flats built in the 1940s and 1950s with around 6,500 new homes of assorted tenure types.
Begun when the council was under Labour control, the project has been frequently derided from the Left, including in recent years by Green Party activists. One claimed that the council’s approach to Woodberry Down was to “kick people out of their homes and break up communities” when it should instead have been renovating its dwellings. In 2019, Zack Polanski, today’s Green Party national leader, claimed the regeneration was taking place “at huge expense” to the estate’s residents of social housing which he said “must be protected”.
In May, the Greens swept Labour out of power in Hackney having made a manifesto pledge to “review and monitor ‘partnerships’ between the council and property developers, including all estate regeneration projects, ensuring the needs of the community are always the priority”. This sounded ominous for the Woodberry Down programme as it had been pursued under Labour. Rumours have circulated in London government and property sector circles that some sort of showdown between Berkeley and Hackney’s Green new brooms was on the cards.
That is not the impression given by the introduction to a council officers’ report on Woodberry Down considered at the first meeting of the council’s new Green cabinet on Monday evening and attributed to Alastair Binnie-Lubbock, its cabinet member for regeneration, planning and inclusive neighbourhoods.
In it, Binnie-Lubbock describes himself as “pleased to provide an update on the Council’s progress in delivering high quality, sustainable homes for our residents, and an exemplary new neighbourhood in the north west of the borough”. He adds: “We will now start building Phase 4 of the scheme and commence the re-housing process for Phase 5 by bringing Phase 5 officially ‘in phase’.”
Before commending the report to his fellow cabinet members, who include Hackney’s new Green Mayor, Zoë Garbett, Binnie-Lubbock states that, “the continued regeneration of Woodberry Down supports the Council’s long-standing commitment that every secure council tenant on the estate has the right to a brand-new, high-quality home at social rent in Woodberry Down.”
Further on, officers set out how the next two phases of the eight-phase regeneration will be delivered. Phases 1 to 3 have already been completed, with over 2,900 new homes, of which 1,130 are for social rent or shared ownership. Planning consent for Phase 4 was given by the council’s planning committee in July 2024 and the site now awaits development with a further 511 homes, of which 90 will be for social rent and 132 for shared ownership.
Many of these are earmarked for social tenants currently living in old estate homes within Phase 5 of the regeneration programme, on a different part of the estate. The report concerns itself with that too: it says that Phase 5 is to be brought “in phase”, which means the process for moving out those living there, so that new homes can later be built in place of the old ones, will get under way.
The Woodberry Down regeneration has so far avoided what is known as “double decanting”, whereby residents who’ve accepted offers of new homes within the estate footprint to replace the ones they’ve had to leave can move straight into those new homes, as they’ve been ready for them in advance. However, it looks as though the choreography between Phase 4 and Phase 5 won’t be so neat. The report says:
“The current programme for Phase 5 requires vacant possession of the existing homes by December 2028.”
That means the Phase 5 households will have to have left by then. The next paragraph of the report says:
“However, new social rented homes in Phase 4, which are intended for current Phase 5 secure tenants to move into, will not be completed and available for occupation until summer 2030.”
Sometimes things move faster than expected, but it looks as if there will be something like an 18-month gap at least during which the Phase 5 secure council tenants will have to be found somewhere else to live until their Phase 4 homes are completed.
Why the mismatch? Why the lag? Couldn’t the “decant” of Phase 5 be done later, so that the Phase 4 homes are ready before the old Phase 5 blocks are vacated and knocked down? Again, the report is informative:
“Delaying the demolition of Phase 5 properties has been explored as an alternative option, to prevent residents from potentially needing to move twice. However, this approach would delay the delivery of new affordable homes in Phase 5 and could increase scheme development costs by a minimum of £13.5 million for Phase 5 (calculated as of November 2025). This could make Phase 5 unviable and would negatively impact the viability of future Phases 6 and 7.”
The financial viability of development schemes is a fraught area. Politicians and housing campaigners of the Left frequently contend that big developers, such as Berkeley Homes, could and should afford to include higher numbers of “affordable” homes within their projects than they do.
When Green politicians promise to “stand up to developers”, contesting assessments of viability and demanding that more below-market priced homes are included as part of any planning consent deal is often what they have in mind.
Here, though, a Green-run London council is accepting that a group of its tenants will have to move twice before settling into their new home, quite possibly off the estate, with all the disruption that entails. The report says that as of May, 188 of the 225 Phase 5 properties are occupied, including by 32 secure tenants households, many of which are understood to be families with children. (There are also 10 resident leaseholders and 132 homeless people who are living there on a temporary accommodation basis. The leaseholders will be offered “shared equity” alternatives. Those temporarily housed are not guaranteed a new home on Woodberry Down).
Hackney’s new Green administration, has, of course, inherited the Woodberry Down programme from Labour. Even so, the praise for it by the cabinet member for regeneration, planning and inclusive neighbourhoods, and the cabinet’s seemingly ready acquiescence with a viability judgement that explicitly entails a “double decant” for secure social tenants is striking.
Also striking is the section about Woodberry Down in a report Mayor Garbett published in March, when she was a member of the London Assembly and chair of its housing committee. She criticised Berkeley Homes, saying it had been “running rings round the community”, and decried the “private densification” of the development site, saying residents had complained to her about “incredibly tall blocks stacked close together”. Also decried were “broken promises and a lack of transparency”.
Can it be assumed that the Greens’ manifesto pledge to “review and monitor ‘partnerships’ between the council and property developers, including all estate regeneration projects, ensuring the needs of the community are always the priority” has been enacted? Asked about this, the council provided the following response from Alastair Binnie-Lubbock:
“We remain committed to reviewing and monitoring partnerships between the Council and property developers so they work in the best interests of Hackney residents.
“By continuing with the delivery of Woodberry Down, the scheme will deliver a new high quality social rented home for all remaining secure Council tenants living in the older properties on the estate, as well as additional affordable housing.
“Around 21 secure tenants living in Phase 5 may need to move to a temporary alternative home on the estate before moving into their brand new social rented home. This is due to a timetable change as a result of a necessary redesign of the Phase 4 scheme to ensure it meets current building regulatory requirements.
“We are continuing to speak with these residents on a one-to-one basis to ensure that the process of moving home is as easy and smooth as it can be in all cases. The needs of the community are our top priority, and our focus is ensuring future phases deliver the new homes residents need.”
Further reading on Woodberry down here.
Article updated on 5 July 2026 to include past claim by Zack Polanski. Follow Dave Hill on Bluesky and at LinkedIn.
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