Harringay, Haringey - So Good they Spelt it Twice!
Enfield's creative solution to housing crisis - please tell LBH
www.theguardian.com/cities/2014/sep/01/enfield-experiment-housing-p...
Skip the first half, jump to the section 'House Hunters'
If I read it correctly, a bunch of council employees have set up a company, got £100m finance, and are buying cheap housing, mostly ex council flats, to house homeless. Then they get the rent, instead of housing benefit going direct to private landlords.
They're also planning to build on some scrap council-owned waste land.
"So thoroughly has the post-Thatcher public sector lost the skills, confidence and financial scope to build, that – when a town hall either adds to or overhauls its housing stock – it usually sells the land to a developer, agrees some easily bent stipulations on social homes and retreats to a blameless distance. Not so Enfield: it is funding the developments itself, holding on to the land, and retaining control of all building. And it’s doing this by, effectively, taking out a socking great mortgage and constructing private homes to rent, which will pay for its new council homes. As with the properties it’s buying, the stock will be owned by the council through a new company – which is not legally obliged to offer the right to buy. [...] This Labour-run council didn’t start off radical. Across the borough are littered other council-house overhauls, led by some big developer with woefully low levels of affordable housing. But circumstances are forcing it to break old habits and try new things."
I'm not clear how this company is not quite part of the council and is not quite private, yet not a housing association. Perhaps one of you can suggest how the ownership works.
Anyway - please pass this on to any officers + politicians who may not have read it....
Tags for Forum Posts: enfield, experiment, homelessness, housing
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Michael Anderson on
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Yes, that aspect of it is rather sick making.
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Permalink Reply by John McMullan on
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Now hang on, they're biting the bullet and "buying back" "now". They could be absolutely and utterly forced to do this in five years time and... lose even more.
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Why do you think that might happen?
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Permalink Reply by pamish on
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Conveyance takes ages (I claim the world record, 15 months from viewing to exchange, then another ten years to finalise freehold). 16 more properties in the pipeline.
Any timing would be wrong. Better timing would have been not to have sold council housing off 30 years ago.
For future benefit, finding ways like this round the iron grip of the 'developers' will pay dividends immediately.
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Permalink Reply by Geoff Amabilino on
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So where are our local councillors in this discussion?
Emine, Barbara, Gina, James, Peter, Ali?
Conspiracy of silence?
Incidentally I have just emailed them with the link and copied the email to David Lammy.
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D Lammy has today published his solution to the housing crisis, I've just picked it up so can someone have a look to see if there's anything like what will become known as the Enfield model?
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At the StAnns meeting last night, there were several people equally inspired by the Enfield example. This is something that a more courageous Haringey Council could be doing instead of handing over all our land to developers in perpetuity. eg the latest example, gifting the Apex House site at Seven Sisters to Grainger.
WHERE ARE OUR COUNCILLORS? Summer break is over. Do you really have to run every bit of published text past the Central Committee?
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I have had a reply from Barbara Blake, in which she says that she found the article interesting and that she will pass on the article to Alan Strickland (Housing and Regenerations) and Charles Adje (Housing and Regeneration Scrutiny Panel) for their information.
I had a brief look at David Lammy's document, and couldn't see anything like the Enfield example in there. There are a couple of proposed 'enablers' like allowing local councils to keep some of the housing benefit that they pay to themselves - that didn't make much sense to me, but I guess it is part of the labyrinth that is local authority finance.
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Permalink Reply by Philip on
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It is a real testament to Labour's monumental failure to change this when they were in office. That councils have to use such a roundabout way to build for need is a disgrace. Our councils should be under an obligation to provide affordable homes to rent for the growing number who will never be able to buy or pay the rents which are rising all the time.
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