Featured Link: Open Garden Estates website

Featured Link: Open Garden Estates report

Open Garden Estates is an initiative by Architects for Social Housing (ASH), a collective working to save London council estates under threat of demolition by Government housing policy, local authority estate regeneration programmes and property developers.

Last year (13-14 June, 2015) Open Garden Estates was hosted by three council estates: Cressingham Gardens in Brixton, Central Hill in Crystal Palace, and Knight’s Walk (part of Cotton Gardens Estate) in Kennington.

It is an opportunity for residents to open up their estate’s green areas, communal spaces and private gardens to the public, and help change the widely held but inaccurate perception of council estates as ‘concrete jungles’ that has been used to justify David Cameron’s plans to Blitz 100 so-called ‘sink estates’. Walking tours for visitors show how well the estates are designed for community living, and increase awareness of the strong and mixed communities that live on them. Above all, it is a chance for estate communities to meet and organise the campaign to save their homes.

More than just an opportunity to bring estate communities together, Open Garden Estates is a chance for participating estates to form connections with ASH and other resistance groups offering support and information about how residents might save their homes from councils and developers.