A VULNERABLE elderly man fighting eviction was yesterday “forcefully sectioned” by officials, sparking protests from local residents.

Lambeth Council have been threatening to sell Tony Healy’s Victorian terrace on Clapham’s Rectory Grove for over a year.

Mr Healy was one of the last remaining residents in the street, refusing to leave the home he had lived in for over 30 years and renovated at own expense.

Local housing activists were prepared to oppose his eviction, but Mr Healy was detained and taken to hospital by police and council officials at 1am yesterday.

Lambeth United Housing Co-op organised a sit down outside the 81-year-old’s home, while neighbours and local residents tried to track down his whereabouts.

The campaign’s spokesman Julian Hall told the Star: “Tony was a valued and cared-for member of a close community, one of many such communities smashed by Labour Lambeth’s reactionary council.

“The fabric of the community has gone and his housing threatened — is Lambeth successfully going to pick up the pieces of a mess it has created?”

Rectory Grove was one of Lambeth’s properties handed over to co-operatives during the 1970s and 1980s, when the council had no means to do them up.

Now in a much sought-after London neighbourhood, Lambeth has enacted a “shortlife recall” of the homes, affecting several local elderly people.

According to property website Zoopla, a three-bedroom home on Rectory Grove fetched over £800,000 at the end of last year.

A Lambeth spokeswoman told the Star no-one could be “forcefully sectioned” and that local officers were supported by health professionals and social workers through the process.

In an earlier statement the council reiterated that “all the remaining occupiers at Rectory Grove have all been offered secure tenancies.

“The vast majority of short-life properties have so far been handed back amicably and we have rehoused many former occupants.

“Legal action is always a last resort, when our attempts to secure possession amicably have failed.”

By late 2014, the council had spent around £1.8 million on staffing and legal costs stemming from evicting “shortlife” residents.

Local Labour MP Kate Hoey has openly opposed the move, calling it “one of the worst the borough has made.”