Pimlico - Crown’s Estate's treasured homes to be sold - Landlords push ahead with keyworker sell off
Published: 28 May 2010
by JAMIE WELHAM
LANDLORDS the Crown Estate will push ahead with plans to sell off homes for key workers and low-income households in the heart of Pimlico.
The Crown, one of the UK’s biggest landowners, which manages around 300 homes in Millbank, has been considering selling the properties for almost 18 months.
Despite hopes it would be shelved in the face of strong opposition from tenants, the sale is still on – but the mystery buyer is yet to be named.
The Crown will hold a further consultation with residents in Pimlico and three other neighbourhoods in the capital once a buyer has stepped forward.
It has drawn angry responses from residents and led to renewed calls for the sale to be abandoned.
Just 1 per cent of residents voted in support of the proposals which have now been amended to include a guarantee that the current level of 90 per cent of new lettings to key workers will be carried on under any new deal.
Dr Ben Bowling, chairman of the Millbank Residents Association, said: “It’s very disappointing that in consulting, the Crown Estate have not taken onboard the most significant point, which is that there’s almost unanimous opposition to the sale.
“We welcome these concessions even though we still need to ask whether the estates are going to be run in the positive way they have been until now.”
Another tenant, Terry Harper, said: “Speaking to other tenants, the common thread is disappointment and dismay and a feeling of being betrayed. We were asked our opinion by the Crown and it has been totally disregarded.”
The chairman of the Crown, Sir Stuart Hampson, released a statement outlining developments last Friday. The letter was sent to every Crown tenant in London.
It said: “The Board is conscious that this is an issue which has great sensitivity for its residents.
“The Crown Estate’s approach to business is guided by our commitment to integrity and stewardship alongside a commercial approach to managing our property portfolio. The Crown Estate Act places a clear requirement on us to enhance the value of the Estate and the income it generates for the Treasury.
“The Board agreed with stakeholders and residents that these estates provide valuable key worker rented accommodation. However, it also noted that these estates remain only a small part of the Crown Estate’s portfolio, that there are no plans to increase this provision, and that the Crown Estate is under no statutory duty to provide housing of this type.
“Taking all these factors into account, the Board believes that the estates would be more effectively run by an organisation whose core business is managing this type of housing subject to important conditions in respect of the continued provision of key worker rented housing in the future.
“We are satisfied that the proposed way forward will fully meet the concerns which have been so clearly expressed to us.”