A Wandsworth tenant threatened with eviction last year, at the age of 82, has been told by the new council administration that no eviction process was ever formally opened.
Frances Bird, of the Lennox Estate in Roehampton, was threatened with eviction last October after posting a Facebook comment critical of a councillor. Nine months on, and with a new Conservative administration running things, Cabinet Member Ethan Brooks has confirmed in writing that no Notice of Seeking Possession, the formal first legal step toward eviction, was ever served.
Bird says the clarification came as a relief but also a shock. “Made me ill for a year,” she told Putney.news this week. She had accumulated dozens of character witness statements from local residents, including many that have since moved away, and has been prepared to argue her case for months.
Despite requests for clarification, however, and despite knowing that Mrs Bird feared being kicked out of her own home, the previous administration failed to inform her either that she was secure in her tenancy or that they had never instigated a process in the first place.
She received an answer only because she raised the case directly with Cllr Brooks, who was on the estate last month for an unrelated meeting about local issues including rats, illegal parking and cleaning.
What Brooks confirmed
In an email dated 14 July, Cllr Brooks, who is Cabinet Member for Environment, told Bird that no eviction process had ever been started against her and that none was being pursued. He confirmed no NOSP had been served and no decision had been taken to seek possession of her home.
“I can confirm that no eviction process was commenced against you and that there is no eviction process being pursued by the Council,” Cllr Brooks wrote, adding that concerns had been raised about her social media comments but that this had not translated into any formal legal step.
Mrs Bird has lived in her council flat for 41 years, much of it as a Residents Association chair and is well-known locally for representing local interests. But after she responded to a post by then-cabinet member for housing Councillor Aydin Dikerdem with an offensive comment, she was pressured to step down.
Then came an email from the council’s Area Housing Manager warning that her Facebook post had been reported to police, recorded as a “hate incident,” and could lead to legal action to evict her. “You will likely be served with a Notice of Seeking Possession,” the email, marked ‘Official’ stated, “I can not tell you when it will be served at this time.”
Months later, after she still hadn’t heard anything, she asked estate management staff what was going on and was told in person that the eviction process “was going through.” Since then, she tells us, she has constantly worried that she could be evicted from her home any day.
When we approached Cllr Dikerdem for comment prior to writing a story about the threatened eviction back in October last year, he refused to answer any of our questions. Instead, a few days later, he posted a seven-minute video accusing Putney.news of being “fake news.”
An outspoken defender
Mrs Bird has championed the Lennox Estate for decades, playing a role in defeating efforts by developers to build on the estate’s main green in the 1990s. She did the same again last year when it was the council itself that tried to build a 14-story tower on the same green; a plan led and championed by Cllr Dikerdem that has now been scrapped by the new administration.
Mrs Bird was also an outspoken voice when Burke Close suffered a series of gas explosions in April 2025. In the house next to hers, a fireman was nearly killed when he was blown ten feet backwards trying to secure houses. The council denied any responsibility, telling a subsequent housing committee meeting that its actions had been “exemplary.” Bird went public and told Putney.news that she and others had warned the council on multiple occasions about the smell of gas at the back of their houses and the council had done nothing about it.
When we wrote about that claim, Cllr Aydin Dikerdem responded to a request for comment with personal abuse and subsequently told a committee meeting that reports about safety concerns were “misinformation” and that critics were using “scandal” to sow fear.
He went on: “We’re in the business of safety and it’s important that we get the facts out clearly. Some of what’s been said has just scared residents unnecessarily.”
With the news this week that the council never pursued a complaint against Mrs Bird, despite telling her otherwise, it turns out that it was the council and no one else that had been scaring residents unnecessarily.
Tenants facing pressure can contact Shelter’s tenancy rights advice line or raise a formal complaint through the council’s own complaints procedure.
