Housing association tenants fighting eviction in south London have been left feeling intimidated after their landlord put up fences and posted security around their homes.
The Guinness Partnership says the fences have been erected around the Guinness Trust estate in Brixton for health and safety reasons, but residents suspect they are a punitive measure after they blockaded the site to halt building works.
The estate is set to be knocked down and replaced with flats. Its tenants say Guinness has left families with nowhere to go and dispute claims that the regeneration will increase the number of social homes.
Many residents have already been served with orders to leave their homes, and the sudden appearance of fences and dozens of security guards left them afraid they were facing imminent eviction.
Betiel Mehari, 42, who lives on the estate with her two sons, aged seven and eight, told the Guardian the fences appeared without warning on Tuesday. The first she knew of them is when security guards stopped her leaving through her usual route.
“I wanted to get milk for my children from the local shop and I was stopped by four security guards,” she said. “They said to me: ‘You can’t go this way, you have to go the other way through the alleyway.’
