Westminster Council has been on a home-buying spree, spending over £6m on properties to house homeless families.
All the properties are outside its own borough, all in east London.
The council is planning to spend a further £9m on buying properties outside Westminster.
It has so far bought 34 properties, of which 30 have two bedrooms and four have three, in Barking and Dagenham, Redbridge, Enfield, and Newham.
The average price paid was £183,000 compared with the average cost of a flat or maisonette in Westminster at just short of a million – £960,039.
Cllr Paul Dimoldenberg, leader of the Labour group, said: “Westminster Conservatives should not be using their financial muscle by buying up properties in east London and exporting families to [places] where they have no connections or family support.
“These Westminster families should be housed in Westminster and the council should be building more social housing.
“Westminster council’s policy of spending millions of pounds buying up properties in east London does not increase the available housing stock but it takes away properties from people in east London who are trying to buy.
“Westminster’s social cleansing policies are an absolute disgrace and should have no place in a civilised society.”
Cllr Daniel Astaire, the council’s cabinet member for housing and regeneration, responded: “This betrays a total lack of understanding of the issues affecting housing supply in central London.
“Securing accommodation in parts of London where property is cheaper represents a practical step to help people in housing need. For people who become homeless, it is important that we find properties in places they can afford to live while meeting the expectations of the Westminster taxpayer.
“We are far from alone in taking this step – in fact there are very few London local authorities across the political spectrum which are not doing so.”
My first thought was ‘great! They’re buying houses that (presumably) have people living in them who will be looking to buy other houses!’
I’m sure others will tell me I’m wrong, but surely buying and using existing houses is better for the market than building new ones which will only really benefit the builders?
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I think the problem is we have a housing shortage in the UK. And Westminster has (i think i am right in saying) the longest waiting list in the UK to be housed.
But thats a whole can of worms to open up and debate 😉
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I wasn’t meaning not to build new ones by the way, just that utilising the existing ones, especially ones that are sitting empty or have been on the market for a while (as long as the price is right) isn’t a bad thing, and will help move things along.
Just in case you thought I didn’t want new ones built. 🙂
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Cleared up perfectly!
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