Jonathan Wilson

So Dagenham

In 2012 a number of London councils announced plans to relocate housing benefit claimants outside the capital as cuts continued to reduce the number of properties affordable to people receiving welfare benefits. Tory-led councils such as Hillingdon, Croydon and Westminster admitted to either placing claimants outside the capital or said they were preparing to do so, but the political storm really erupted when it emerged that Labour-run Newham Council was planning to move 500 families who relied on housing benefit some 160 miles away, to Stoke-on-Trent. These announcements highlighted the depth of London's housing crisis, a dire situation that is forcing increasing numbers of people to the farthest reaches of the capital.

With little hope of meeting the growing demand for affordable housing within central zones, the Greater London Authority outlines new planning policies for the redevelopment of London’s ‘Outerborough’.

Set against the post-industrial landscape of Dagenham, this project imagines a pioneering attitude to the development of previously undesirable land. By forcing us to question traditional notions of taste, the outer borough reappropriates its infrastructure: Dag-nam Style