Public sector workers took to the streets to protest against a housing association’s 9 per cent rent rise that could force residents to move out of London

• THANK you for featuring our campaign, (Protest at Peabody HQ over housing association’s 9 per cent rent rise, March 21).

Peabody’s statement that our rents are decent value for money in central London misses the point in comparing our rents with those of commercial properties.

George Peabody set up a philanthropic charity in 1862 to provide decent, genuinely affordable, housing for the working poor of London and his housing association’s original financing was to create the kind of housing which does not require the level of returns commercial development does. Don’t raise our rents, lower commercial rents.

Peabody has also said our rents are subsidised. The pre-Peabody rent was at levels more attuned to the ability of the tenants to pay than to some formulaic approach to profit, as has happened since Peabody bought the four Crown Estates in 2011. If there is any subsidy paid to Peabody it is in the form of housing benefit, provided by the taxpayer, which increases as Peabody puts its rents up.

It is also interesting to note how the board members of the housing associations move around. Peabody merged with Catalyst Housing in April 2023, our chief executive officer was previously CEO at Catalyst and on April 1 the new chair of the board will join Peabody from the Riverside Group; its subsidiary is One Housing.

SUSAN RUNSWICK
Cumberland Market Residents’ Association, NW1