Eversfield Estate/Trust - Affordable housing
Posted: Tue Sep 04, 2018 10:53 am
Hi all,
I'm trying to find any information/resources relating to the current existence of the Eversfield Estate (for reference the Eversfield family, from what I can gather, were descendants of the Levett Family and owned most of the land which became St Leonards, during the development of St Lens they acquired huge amounts of property), and specifically an amount of housing which was put into trust by 2 sisters, descendants of the Eversfield Family.
From what I can piece together, some time around 1829 a large amount of Eversfield Estate owned housing stock across the town was put into trust, I'm told this was done by an act of parliament but I'm not clear on the details or why this would be the case.
The housing was supposedly put into a philanthropic trust with the intention of providing long term affordable housing for people on low incomes. It seems this was the case for the best part of the last 100+ years, but more recently (within the last 10-15 years) it seems the trust may have folded and more recently still (within the last 5 years) a lot of rental tenants in the housing are now facing eviction or exorbitant (40%+) rent increases.
I've been contacted by two elderly female tenants who are obviously quite concerned, and have promised to do what I can to figure out the details, but beyond a lot of very old and bewildering documents which are stored on East sussex Record Office online archive (http://www.thekeep.info/) I can't find any information about this.
I would be very much grateful for any information, perhaps you live in an Eversfield Estate owned property or know someone who does, or perhaps you're familiar with the history of the estate?
I look forward to hearing from you.
Sam
I'm trying to find any information/resources relating to the current existence of the Eversfield Estate (for reference the Eversfield family, from what I can gather, were descendants of the Levett Family and owned most of the land which became St Leonards, during the development of St Lens they acquired huge amounts of property), and specifically an amount of housing which was put into trust by 2 sisters, descendants of the Eversfield Family.
From what I can piece together, some time around 1829 a large amount of Eversfield Estate owned housing stock across the town was put into trust, I'm told this was done by an act of parliament but I'm not clear on the details or why this would be the case.
The housing was supposedly put into a philanthropic trust with the intention of providing long term affordable housing for people on low incomes. It seems this was the case for the best part of the last 100+ years, but more recently (within the last 10-15 years) it seems the trust may have folded and more recently still (within the last 5 years) a lot of rental tenants in the housing are now facing eviction or exorbitant (40%+) rent increases.
I've been contacted by two elderly female tenants who are obviously quite concerned, and have promised to do what I can to figure out the details, but beyond a lot of very old and bewildering documents which are stored on East sussex Record Office online archive (http://www.thekeep.info/) I can't find any information about this.
I would be very much grateful for any information, perhaps you live in an Eversfield Estate owned property or know someone who does, or perhaps you're familiar with the history of the estate?
I look forward to hearing from you.
Sam