A last-ditch attempt to save the Lesnes Estate in south Thamesmead from redevelopment is set to fail, according to the resident who launched it.

Adam Turk said it would take “a miracle” to overturn the Peabody housing association’s plans to demolish the 596 homes on the estate and replace them with up to 1,950 new homes.

Earlier this year Turk lodged a claim for judicial review of Bexley Council’s decision to approve Peabody’s plans to knock down his home. A High Court judge turned down this request earlier this month.

The judicial review claim hinged on the environmental impact the demolition will have, and how the planning documents accompanying the plans supposedly downplayed the harmful effects of the demolition’s greenhouse gas emissions.

Turk’s lawyers from the Public Interest Law Centre have triggered a mechanism that will allow them to articulate their argument in a one-hour hearing later this month, but Turk said this was unlikely to have an effect on the judge’s decision.

He said: “It doesn’t look good. A lot of the laws are all against us.

“A miracle can happen, but I’ve been going through this for three years now and I’ve been looking at all the planning laws and different cases, and it just seems that they’ve got all the laws sewn up.”

Turk said he was disappointed that the judge refused his claim and described estate regeneration projects such as the one in Thamesmead as “a slow death of council housing as everything’s getting replaced with this luxury property”.

Lesnes Estate with protest banner
Only about 30 households remain on the doomed estate. Image: Facundo Arrizabalaga/LDRS

Lesnes Estate was built in the late 1960s by the old Greater London Council, but since 2014 most of Thamesmead has been under the control of Peabody, which has already redeveloped some of the earlier blocks around Southmere Lake. Campaigners occupied an empty house in 2024, demanding to meet the head of Peabody.

Only about 30 households are thought to be left living on the Lesnes Estate, which has become dilapidated as it awaits demolition. Peabody has offered residents financial support to move elsewhere.

A Peabody spokesperson said: “Resident homeowners have the chance either to buy a 1960s home like theirs on the neighbouring estate, a new home in the brand-new development, or another home in Thamesmead – or elsewhere – if that’s what they choose.”

Peabody is offering Lesnes residents the market value of their home plus 10 per cent as compensation. The developer is also willing to bridge potential price gaps between current and new homes by contributing up to half of the equity.

Cameron Blackshaw is the Local Democracy Reporter for Greenwich and Bexley. The Greenwich Wire is a partner in the Local Democracy Reporting Service, which is a BBC-funded initiative to ensure councils are covered properly in local media.

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