Lambeth's Answer

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They face deportation as a result of the breakdown of their marriages - their right 'RED' Lambeth Council have come up wuth a novel contribution to London's housing shortage knocking down perfectly sound blocks of flats.

Why? You may well ask.

Well, it seems that the Tinworth Street estate has been branded as 'evil' What, Satanism in Kennington? Is Lambeth under demonic possession? Not quite, though to read some of the more hysterical outpourings of the Standard, you could be forgiven for believing council leader Ted Knight is the Evil One incarnate.

No, it seems the estate is plagued by vandalism, hooliganism and wanton violence to a hideous degree. Tenants claim they are so terrorised by gangs of youths that they are afraid to leave their homes.

This was even accepted in mitigation in a recent Old Bailey case, where a man was given a lighter sentence for killing a neighbour than the judge would otherwise have handed down.

Now, all this is very nasty for the remaining tenants of Tinworth, who quite understandably want out and would be pleased to see the whole place razed to the ground. But it doesn't seem to justify Lambeth Council giving in to superstition and claiming, in the words of Housing Chair Matthew Warburton 'the only answer is to demolish the flats' He admits The flats themselves are not bad' and Lambeth Council is fully aware of the real reason for the intolerable conditions on the estate: 'The flats became what we call hard-to-let. As a result families who have been Internecine warfare and