Anger as bankers buying up ‘affordable’ homes

7:54am Monday 26th June 2006

Comments (0)   Have your say »

Affordable homes in Wandsworth that were supposed to be reserved for key workers have been sold to City bankers and buy-to-let investors, it has emerged.

Berkeley Homes built more than 800 flats at Chelsea Bridge Wharf in Battersea and 242 of them were meant to be affordable.

However, charitable housing association Threshold, which bought the flats from Berkeley, sold off 86 of them at 90 per cent of the price a price tag no key worker could afford.

The flats start at £200,000, with two-bedroom apartments selling for £385,000.

However, key workers, such as police officers, teachers and nurses, only earn between £16,400 and £49,000, meaning the maximum they could borrow would be £171,500.

Battersea MP Martin Linton said he thought all 242 flats would be sold as affordable housing.

"I was disappointed to find out Threshold had sold off 86 of the flats and I'm trying to get in touch with them to find out why they did this," he said.

Threshold said it had to sell off the flats in order to fund the shared-ownership scheme for the other 156 homes.

Under this arrangement, low-income families can buy part of the property as little as 25 per cent and pay subsidised rent on the rest.

Wandsworth Council leader Edward Lister said: "We are very angry. First because Threshold didn't even bother to tell us what they were doing, but mainly because these flats were meant to help our key workers in the long term and now 86 of them have gone for good."

But the Housing Corporation, which oversees social housing, said Threshold was perfectly entitled to sell off the flats to fund the part-ownership plan.

A spokesman pointed out the money made from the sale of the flats would be ploughed back into social housing.

The row comes as the London Assembly published a report which accuses Mayor Ken Livingstone of failing to define what affordable means.

The report said affordable housing should have a price cap to ensure it will actually reach people who need it.

Assembly member Tony Arbour, who chaired the report, said: "My personal view is that affordable housing is a phrase that is increasingly seen as meaningless. Where developers are meeting targets they may not be meeting local need.

"In order to meet their affordable units targets, house builders often supply only the smallest units as they are the cheapest."

He said the committee wants councils to define affordable housing clearly and require a better mix of sizes to meet local needs.