SWEETS WAY campaigners cried victory yesterday after Barnet Council was forced to find homes for the estate’s remaining families hours before bailiffs were due to throw them onto the streets.

The day had started with the children of three local families going to school in tears, afraid that they would have no home to go back to after the bell.

Andrew Grealish, Zlatka Doynova and their six-year-old son Daniel had been living in fear of eviction for the last month, without knowing whether they would get somewhere to live.

The council had been “disgusting, actually disgusting,” Ms Doynova told the Star.

“They make you feel like you’re very small and you are going there begging for a place.

“It’s been disgusting the way they treat people, not only us but in general.”

The family had been living on the estate for four years when its owner Annington Homes began demolishing the buildings.

But, last month, NHS workers Mr Grealish and Ms Doynova were discharged from the council’s housing list after Barnet miscalculated their earnings by over £7,000.

After help and support from the Sweets Way Resists campaign, the family was able to prove the council wrong and was offered a two-bedroom flat in the borough.

“I think that if we didn’t join the campaign we would end up anywhere,” added Ms Doynova.
However, she added that her child had been left traumatised by the whole process.

“It’s been horrible — on quite a few occasions (my son) cried himself to sleep.

“(He was) crying and saying: ‘I don’t want to be homeless mummy, I don’t want to go to another school, I don’t want to lose my friends’ and ‘I was to stay here because I am happy here’.”

The campaigners said they were “thrilled” with the happy ending but worried about the ongoing demolition of the estate.

“Sweets Way is now far closer to being destroyed,” said a Sweets Way Resists spokesman.

But he vowed that the occupied space would remain “as an impediment to development plans and will continue to be a hub of resistance and community spirit in the days and weeks ahead.”