Chasing happiness

Mon, 27 Oct 2008 | By Emily Twinch

If you are regenerating and your tenants don’t want to move, who do you call? The stress busters?

That is what Southwark Council has done to help tenants deal with the upheaval of living through a regeneration scheme.

The council is demolishing the 1960s blocks of flats that make up the Heygate Estate in Elephant and Castle as part of a £1.5 billion project. But many of the 650 residents did not want to move, and were concerned about losing their community.

Ola Agbaimoni, in charge of Heygate’s regeneration programme, came up with the idea of bringing in counsellors after hearing tales of distraught tenants, often in tears as they moved out.

‘Moving is one of the most stressful things you can do and if you don’t deal with the stress it can be a pre-cursor to poor mental health,’ she explains. ‘Some people have been on the estate for 35 years – just that change, saying goodbye, it’s very difficult. This is enormous for them.’

The stress busters are from a company called the Happiness Project, which works by providing group therapy and counselling sessions where residents can talk about their worries.

The council has spent £2,000 on three workshops – one last month, this month and one next month. All the 556 tenants left on the estate, who have to be moved by September next year, were leafleted to see if wanted to go to the sessions.

‘It looks at how you manage the change,’ Ms Agbaimoni says. ‘You look at the positives in your life to deal with those things. You need some space to talk about how you are dealing with it.’

About 10 people attended the first two sessions and it will be decided whether to carry on after seeing the success of the third in November.

Some tenants have criticised the move saying it is a waste of money. Ernie Hart, 67, of the Heygate Tenants’ and Residents’ Association, says all the council needs to do is talk to tenants to stop them feeling anxious.

However a similar approach is being taken on the nearby Aylesbury Estate, which is home to 7,500 people. Here the Creation Trust, a charity run by the residents to oversee the development, has brought in public relations firm Hill & Knowlton.

The charity believes getting communication with residents right will be key to the success of the £2.4 billion project, which will see 5,000 new homes built over the next 15 years.