Skip to main content

To: 'Butterfields E17 Ltd' aka Jasbir Singh Jumat and Pardeep Singh Jumat

Butterfields Won't Budge

UPDATE: 01/11/16
We won!

Following this campaign, a housing association called 'Dolphin Living' has come to the rescue of tenants at the Butterfields Estate in Walthamstow and bought 49 homes.

Dolphin Living said: "Whilst our focus remains on bringing homes to market for those who live or work in the City of Westminster, we have taken the decision to invest in the Butterfields Estate at open market value.

“This means that there will be no further evictions of tenants for at least the next 5 years, coupled with our commitment to ensure that no unrealistic rental increases are activated during this period – capped at 5% per annum.”

Read more here: https://home.38degrees.org.uk/2016/11/07/win-save-butterfields-estate/

We are asking 'Butterfields E17 Ltd' to stop selling the properties that we live in, and halt any eviction processes given to tenants living on the Butterfields Estate.

Why is this important?

63 Families on the Butterfields estate in Walthamstow are facing eviction.

A private business has bought almost two whole streets in Walthamstow, east London, and put the homes up for auction as vacant properties with the tenants still inside. A first round of eviction notices have been served and more could be just weeks away. These houses are not just bricks and mortar - they are our homes.

The Butterfields Estate is a close-knit community, with tenants ranging from London-born, raised, and retired locals, to young migrant families. Until the end of 2015, Butterfields Estate was owned by Glasspool Charitable Trust, set up 75 years ago with the intention of “Helping people out of poverty”. It offered relatively affordable tenancies for people on low incomes.

The charity has sold 63 of these homes to private business ‘Butterfields E17 Ltd’ (rather than social landlords) without notifying its tenants. This means that our community is not only facing further gentrification, advertised by estate agents as “a worthy buy-to-let investment”. We are all facing the traumatising prospect of homelessness and misplacement – all in the name of profit.

Sukran and Dogan Rashit have been given until 26 March to leave their home of more than ten years. “We don’t know what will happen to us,” Sukran says. “I have no money to put down a deposit on a new place. My husband and I aren’t young and we both have health problems. When you’ve lived in a place for ten years you know all your neighbours. My hospital, my GP and my daughter are all nearby. I can’t move somewhere new now. It’s frightening.”

Magda Krol has two sons: the older goes to a local school, and the younger starts pre-school in September. “Yesterday after his homework Johnny started saying ‘I don’t want to move, what’s going to happen to my bed and my room?’, and he started to cry. I was trying to tell him not to worry.”

Encouraged by successful campaigns like the New Era estate in Hackney, east London, we are determined to defend our homes and community. Please help us stop the evictions!

“The potential for a fight-back is there,” says Nathaniel Andrew. “But only if we all fight together.”

We urge you all to show your support for Butterfields Estate tenants by signing this petition to stop the forced evictions, and save our homes and our community!
Walthamstow, London

Maps © Stamen; Data © OSM and contributors, ODbL

Category

Links

Updates

2018-01-12 08:35:16 +0000

Petition is successful with 4,018 signatures

2016-11-07 16:56:53 +0000

Petition is successful with 4,013 signatures

2016-11-02 12:36:25 +0000

Petition is successful with 4,011 signatures

2016-06-14 13:50:48 +0100

Hi all, we want to apologise for not updating this page enough.
We had huge support and it was overwhelming and gratifying to see, and have all been working as hard as possible to gain the attention of the media, as well as to apporach NatWest, the Glasspool Charitable Trust, and Butterfields E17 Ltd in order to hold them all to account.
We have spoken to our ward councillors and also been supported by our local MP Stella Creasy. We're also indebted to the local Housing Action Network and members of the Socialist Party who have stepped up and campaigned on our behalf when we feltto weak, frightened, or stymied by what was happening. It appeared that things had turned a corner when Dolphin Living housing association agreed to enter into talks with BE17Ltd about buying our homes and keeping us as tenants. That joy was abruptly halted when more eviction notices were sent out to households. We were told negotiations had stopped. But we still won't budge.

2016-03-03 19:47:16 +0000

1,000 signatures reached

2016-03-03 08:00:52 +0000

500 signatures reached

2016-03-02 15:53:08 +0000

100 signatures reached

2016-03-02 13:58:19 +0000

50 signatures reached

2016-03-02 11:40:59 +0000

25 signatures reached

2016-03-01 21:10:18 +0000

10 signatures reached