What WDCO does and what WDCO might do

Woodberry Down Community Organisation — April 2026

The Woodberry Down Community Organisation has been the residents’ voice in one of London’s largest regeneration projects for more than two decades. Here is a plain account of what it does today, and what it might take on in the years ahead.

What WDCO does

• Attends and contributes to the Partnership Board — the senior governance forum for the regeneration, at the head of a structured hierarchy of meetings that runs from the monthly WDCO Board and Executive through the Estate Management Board, NHG Operations and walkabouts, the Hackney Operations Board, and regular Liaison meetings. WDCO is the resident voice at every level of this structure.
• Monitors whether the promises made to secure tenants who gave up their homes for demolition are being kept — on the right to return, on bedroom standards, and on the character of the community they were promised.
• Scrutinises plans, decisions, and policies across the regeneration, and challenges partners when things are not going as they should.
• Supports residents who have questions or complaints about housing, parking, or service charges — identifying patterns of problems and raising them formally with the relevant partner.
• Advocates for local businesses affected by construction disruption, including helping them access business rates relief through the Check, Challenge, Appeal process.
• Organises community events and an annual Community Forum open to all residents — bringing people from all phases and tenures together.
• Runs regular coffee mornings as a straightforward point of contact between WDCO and the wider community.
• Brokers activities and services that residents want but that require someone to make them happen — for example, arranging a new senior fitness class at the Redmond Community Centre, and (in 2025) securing ten funded places for estate children on water sports courses at West Reservoir.
• Maintains the WDCO website at wdco.org.uk and keeps residents informed about developments affecting the estate.

What WDCO might do in the future

• Become a registered charity or community interest company — giving WDCO the legal standing to hold contracts, take on leases, and compete for funding that is simply not available to an unincorporated association. This would be the single change with the greatest long-term effect on what WDCO can achieve.
• Apply for grants from trusts and foundations, opening up resources well beyond what the economic partners currently provide and reducing dependence on any single source of income.
• Monitor more systematically whether housing and lettings policies are being correctly applied — particularly the original commitments made to those who gave up their homes for demolition, which remain live obligations for as long as any phase of the regeneration is incomplete.
• Build a network of Residents’ Associations at block or phase level, giving residents a more local point of contact and giving WDCO a much stronger and broader representative base.
• Develop a regular, structured picture of how residents across the estate are faring — drawing on Citizens Advice Bureau data and other sources — so that emerging hardship can be identified and acted on before it becomes a crisis.
• Take an active role in how Block D, the new community hub now approaching completion, is used and accessed by residents.
• Engage with the Manor House Community Action Panel on safety at the estate’s main gateway — contributing a community voice to what needs to be a multi-agency response to a worsening problem.
• Work more closely with Manor House Development Trust, which manages the Redmond Community Centre, in support of community activities there.
• Repeat and extend the activity brokerage work — securing funded or subsidised places for residents on sports, fitness, and leisure programmes of the kind piloted in 2025 with the West Reservoir water sports courses.
• Establish benchmarking on service charges across comparable estates, so that residents can assess more easily whether they are getting value for money.
• Develop a stronger social media presence to reach newer and younger residents who may not yet know what WDCO is or what it can do for them.