Hackney elections leaflet-watch: Have Greens opposed the building of social housing?

Critical of the Greens on social housing: the Hackney Labour party leaflet

A Labour party leaflet entitled “Why Labour are the best choice to tackle housing crisis” and distributed across the borough, alleges that the Green party opposes building new social homes in London and Bristol.

The leaflet makes the claim that “Greens across London have consistently opposed the social housebuilding projects they claim to support.”

So is this the case here in Hackney?

A Labour party spokesperson has highlighted the Greens’ opposition to the Woodberry Down redevelopment, which he described as “one of London’s largest housing projects, including new social and affordable homes.”

He has also noted that “Labour-run Hackney Council has a strong record in building new homes for social rent, in part using a pioneering and visionary arrangement with developers. And is committed to building even more homes in the next four years, along with buying back social housing lost through Right To Buy, as part of a long term plan to build, buy back, renovate, refurbish and regenerate council homes.”

A Hackney Greens spokesperson said: “Hackney Labour is being deceptive in their leaflets.”

“Here in Hackney, the Labour council boasts of delivering 1,000 homes, but reported in December 2025 that only 29 have actually been delivered since 2022. Delivering housing is a priority for Hackney Greens to make Hackney a place where everyone can afford to stay.”

“Hackney Greens have a plan to deliver the houses we need and fix the ones we’ve got: through building and buying back council homes and radically improving the council housing repairs service, aiming to inspect repairs within one week of reporting.”

The Greens’ objections to the Woodberry Down redevelopment scheme

The Green party, for their part, have criticised the Woodberry Down development on the grounds that tenants were likely to face higher rents and service charges.

They also noted that many of the private flats already built on the site had been sold to overseas investors.

Green party activist Dr Alex Armitage has said that the development plans were “not consistent with the climate emergency” and that Hackney Council was “kick[ing] council tenants out of their homes” and “break[ing] up communities.”

He added: “Instead we should be investing in our existing council housing stock and renovating buildings that have gone into disrepair.”

The Woodberry Down redevelopment has also attracted considerable criticism from local groups on the grounds that the number of social homes included in the final plans is lower than expected.

Criticisms of the scheme by community groups

The Stoke Newington Conservation Area Advisory Committee (CAAC) and Hackney Society Planning Group had previously commented, saying: “The third masterplan proposes a total of 6,495 [units], a 140 per cent increase from the original masterplan in 2007, which initially planned for 4,664 units […] The number of social rent units has decreased from the originally promised 1584 units to 1320 units, representing only 20.3 per cent of the total units in the new masterplan […].

“When originally built, Woodberry down was 100 per cent social housing, however the first masterplan promised 1,584 homes for social rent, i.e. 34 per cent”.

The group goes on to say that “the developer blurs the numbers of social rent units by lumping ‘shared equity’ and ‘shared ownership’ units and ‘social rent’ units into a cumulative figure of 43 per cent. However, buried in the planning are the true numbers proposed in the Masterplan 3. In summary, the Phase 5, 6, 7 & 8 Masterplan proposes to demolish 692 social rent units and build 583 social rent units.”

At the planning sub-committee meeting in September 2025 when planning permission for the final phases of the scheme was granted, a representative of Woodberry Down Community Organisation (WDCO), likewise criticised the relatively low number of social housing units included in the final plans and noted that initial plans had been for a substantially larger number.