09 Jan Tanya Murat Profile by Jacob Dickinson
Fighting the council – Tanya Murat will not stop
SDCH official Logo
Getting to know Tanya and the group of activists she leads that are battling the housing crisis.
The UK is at its knees. More than 170 tenants are evicted daily according to Ministry of Justice figures of 2015. This is a 53% increase from 2010, something must be done about the housing crisis.
Tanya Murat has been the chair of Southwark defend council housing for over 3 years. I met up with her just before one of her meetings being held at the tenant centre located on a council estate in North Peckham. I’d been to several group meetings before to get a real idea of who Ms’ Murat is.
She’s passionate, driven and is well known amongst her community. Being invited to campaign group’s meetings that confront issues such as regeneration and gentrification in the borough of Southwark.
Tanya told me that her organisation is “a campaign group formed by local residents that battle the sale of council housing-to-housing associations and private developers.”
Her role as chair of SDCH involves her co-ordinating the group, fulfilling a weekly mailing list of over 1000 people, proposing actions and activities to endorse the cause and recruiting new members.
Tanya speaking with a Defend council housing member
The sale of council houses at auction is an extremely controversial topic. In 2013, a property in Borough sold for close to £3million, leaving protesters that occupied the building livid. Tanya described this as gentrification.
“This is an example of social cleansing, or gentrification something that SDCH is trying to put an end to. We strongly oppose the demolition of council housing and the housing act – this is one thing causing the housing crisis.”
When someone refers to ‘the housing crisis’ it’s not to do with there not being enough houses for everybody – it’s to do with the people. People not being able to afford their mortgage payments, people being placed in temporary accommodation, people having their lives dictated to them – where they work, live and where their children go to school.
If it didn’t seem like Ms’ Murat had enough on her plate – then think again. She also has to balance her day job – working as a planning officer for Greenwich council and look after her younger daughter too.
“I can’t be everywhere at once, no matter how hard I try, but SDCH has a solid group of people that can cover for me whilst I’m not there. With my job though, I really know how things work, the process of regeneration that is.”
But all of this work for SDCH was an extraordinary workload, I wanted to dig deeper, and I wanted to know what was driving Tanya to hold such an important role in the group and what exactly she wanted to achieve.
“I’m an activist. I’m a socialist; it’s my strong political views that drive me. What we are trying to achieve in housing rights is part of a wider movement, a transformation of society where working class people have dignity and rights are upheld.”
The passion she spoke with was infectious. SDCH was recently handed a victory as the councils attempt to evict Aylesbury estate leaseholders is rejected for a second time following a judge’s ‘strongly worded letter.’
A march organised by SDCH.
