Campaigners are pushing for residents of the Cambridge Road Estate in Kingston to have a meaningful final say over whether propsoed regeneration work goes ahead.

A complete overhaul of the estate is planned, with all 830 homes to be demolished and about 2,000 new homes built.

The local Labour Party presented a petition calling for a ballot in April, and councillors will debate it at the full council meeting on July 17.

Phil Bevin, who organised the petition and will speak at the meeting, said: “It’s important because across London we’ve had these big regeneration projects.

“Some people have called it social cleansing, when existing residents and tenants can’t afford to move into the new flat. They end up being forced out completely.

“In the case of Cambridge Road, the consultation has been appalling. In the last round, there were three options, all of which involved an extensive knock-down and rebuild of the estate.”

A residents’ ballot is not a legal requirement, because the regeneration has already been agreed with the Greater London Authority, but the council does intend to carry one out to “demonstrate a clear mandate for the project”.

Council officers have identified that the ballot would likely cost about £450,000, and set out some of the risks in the case of a “no” vote, including losing the money already spent on the scheme.

If councillors agree at the meeting, officers will continue their work in preparing for the ballot and present a fuller report to a future Strategic Housing and Planning Committee.

Chairman of Cambridge Road Estate Residents Association Harry Hall said: “The ballot’s the best thing for the estate, but it’s not actually a legal requirement, which is worrying. I don’t know how much weight it’s going to hold.

“I want to trust the council. I’m hoping the new administration will take the idea of a ballot seriously, but I’m holding out judgement.

“I think a lot of residents want a ballot, but it’s not the silver lining in the cloud. I want to know how much weight it holds.”

The Labour petition also asks for the amount of social housing in the planned scheme to be increased to 1,000 from 653.

Current plans are to replace all council homes on the estate, but not build any more on top of that number.

Dr Bevin said: “Kingston has a waiting list of more than 3,000 for council housing. To do a project on this scale without increasing the stock would be so wrong. It wouldn’t solve any problems.

“I don’t want any false promises. What sometimes happens is there is a certain amount of social or affordable housing promised, but if a developer leans on a council that number gets knocked back.

“So the fear is that actually we could see the number of council properties decrease.”

The officers’ response in their report was to emphasise the target of 50 per cent “affordable” homes, which includes the council homes.

Whether that target can be met will be decided once the cost of the scheme has been worked out, but the developer would have to prove it could not carry out the scheme with that much affordable housing.