Disgruntled Ferrier Estate residents say they are being shipped out to make way for wealthy people. But Greenwich Council says the £750m revamp is for the good of all. SAMANTHA PAYNE spoke to both camps ...

BY 2018 the Ferrier Estate will be unrecognisable from its present drab, depressing sight. Nearly 2,000 1970s' homes will have been demolished and 4,398 new ones will stand in their place.

The 270-acre redevelopment, which will start next year, will include a shopping centre situated around a new transport network.

And it will transform Kidbrooke station and give access to the Jubilee Line.

Council chiefs hope the massive regeneration the biggest of its kind in Europe will reinvent the area, bringing in thousands of new residents.

But for some of those presently living on the estate, the future is not bright, it is frightening.

More than 320 tenants have already left the estate as part of the council's decant process.

Terry Duffield, 76, is the only resident still living in the elderly block on the estate and refuses to leave until the council pulls it down in 2009.

He said: "They've been trying to get me out of this place but I won't go until I have to.

"I have felt like committing suicide as they kept pushing me to move out. This whole scheme stinks of a money-making venture."

A major bone of contention with some of the existing homeowners is the money they are being offered for the properties is not enough to buy something comparable, never mind a new home on the estate.

Homeowner Elizabeth Eve, of Pinto Way, Kidbrooke, said: "This is not a regeneration programme. It is more like a transfer programme of people.

"We've been offered £93,000 for our three-bedroom house. But we can't buy anywhere for that money.

"It's so sad. We had such expectations when we first bought this house in 1972. We had other options but we thought we found somewhere we wanted to spend the rest of our lives. Our future is now like a black hole."

Mother-of-four Bonnie Norris said: "I can't afford to buy the £200,000 properties which will be built here.

"We could be moved out as early as Christmas this year but we are not told anything. Most of us don't know if we are coming or going."

Greenwich Council says it consulted extensively with residents before giving the regeneration the go-ahead.

A spokesman said: "The independent survey we commissioned was drawn up in consultation with residents' groups.

"This was responded to by more than a third of households on the estate and 80 per cent of these 707 responses supported the Kidbrooke proposals."

He added: "We have consulted residents extensively throughout the process, and the answer came back loud and clear they did not want to see the estate continue its decline or to see a limited refurbishment which could not have addressed the fundamental flaws in the design.

"Far from forcing people out, 66 per cent of residents who have been rehoused, more than 200 people, have indicated they wish to leave the estate and never return.

"We have already given a commitment nobody will have to leave the area if they do not want to. As well as having the most financially robust bid, one of the reasons we chose Berkeley Homes to carry out the work was they were offering the most for all residents."

He added: "Far from being a development for the rich, one of the key aspects of it is the large number of affordable homes included in the scheme."