Calthorpe Street home not under hammer
Association withdraws £1m ‘key worker’ house from auction
Published: 16 September, 2010
by JOSH LOEB
A HOUSING association has temporarily withdrawn a home from auction after coming under fire for trying to sell “key worker” housing to the highest bidder.
One Housing Group (OHG) says it withdrew the property, 23 Calthorpe Street, King’s Cross – a vacant Grade II-listed building with a guide price of £1million – from the catalogue of auctioneers McHugh & Co this week so it could undertake “further discussion” about the sale.
An OHG spokeswoman said a share of its homes were being sold off in an effort to raise cash needed to repair the rest of its properties.
The same housing repairs strategy was recently abandoned by Camden Council after tenants and leaseholders campaigned against a policy that allowed private bidders to get their hands on homes meant for the most disadvantaged. Now the same scrutiny is facing OHG’s financing plan.
Housing campaigner Junior Duncan is encouraging all those concerned about the sales to attend a meeting at the Calthorpe Arms pub, Gray’s Inn Road, at 7pm tonight (Thursday).
She said 23 Calthorpe Street was an example of the kind of property that would be perfect for nurses, teachers and others on OHG’s long waiting list.
She said: “There is a huge waiting list of people who are fighting to get homes in this area. I hope OHG take note of what has happened in other places where people have fought against these sales by housing associations and they have backed down.”
Ms Duncan said tenants had been asked to vacate properties in Calthorpe Street as long ago as 2002 so repair work could be undertaken. Some have since returned to renovated homes – but other houses have stood empty or been squatted.
She said: “There is a man in one of the buildings who refused to leave and who said he would rather be taken out in a coffin than leave his home.”
Calthorpe Street and OHG tenant Fran Hanlon said: “Our position is that this is unethical. When everyone else is saying no to more selling off of social housing, One Housing Group are carrying on with it. They should just toe the line. The fact that it is in central London means they are even more keen to sell as it will make more money, but that’s exactly where we need more affordable housing.”
23 Calthorpe Street – which staff at McHugh & Co said they were expecting would be put back up for auction in November – is one of a swathe of homes in King’s Cross that were acquired by Camden Council in the 1970s. The council subsequently sold them to Community Housing Association (CHA), which became part of OHG – a not-for-profit organisation that manages thousands of cheap-to-rent properties – in 2007.
King’s Cross ward Labour councillor Abdul Hai said affordable housing was desperately needed in Camden. He said: “In this housing crisis my hope is that the housing association would have looked at what means are available for raising capital for the repairs apart from offloading their housing stock.”
An OHG spokeswoman said: “We can confirm that the Calthorpe Street property concerned has been temporarily withdrawn from auction pending further discussion on the need to raise finance to fund our Decent Homes programme. Our policy around the disposal of properties is to sell the minimum properties necessary to fund the Decent Homes programme.”