Tenants object to name

Press, 8 November 1984, Page 12

Tenants object to name

MERILYN CHAMBERS,

NZPA staff correspondent London Tenants are defacing their rent books as a protest against a London council’s plan to rename their flats after a New Zealander, Blair Peach, London’s evening newspaper, the “Standard,” has reported. Mr Peach, a teacher, was described as a “Left-wing martyr” after he died when the police charged a crowd at an anti-National Front demonstration in Southall in 1979. The Tower Hamlets Council agreed more than a year ago to rename a block of newly modernised flats, Blair Peach House. But the “Standard” reported that all 39 residents

of the flats, which are in Bethnall Green, have been crossing out the new name which has appeared in rent books for the first time. They are substituting the old name—Butler House. The chairman of the Tenants’ Association, Mr John Snooks, said “All residents are adamant that the block will not be named after a Left-wing martyr.” A spokesman for the council said it was aware that tenants were defacing their rent books. “The tenants made it clear they are not happy living in a block called Blair Peach House, but it is a decision that was taken by the council to give it that name and that decision still stands.”