Housing activists in London were celebrating yesterday as their 22-month campaign of squatting to save Lewisham’s council housing stock came to a victorious end.

Pressure group Lewisham People Before Profit began its vigil in February last year when the borough’s Labour-led council announced plans to auction off five dilapidated council houses rather than renovate them — despite some 17,000 names on the council’s waiting list.

One Angus St property became home to a migrant family with three children who had languished on the waiting list for eight years, spurring mayor Steve Bullock to announce a U-turn last May.