Why we had to sell

Published: 30 September, 2010

•  REGARDING our proposed sale of a property in Calthorpe Street, let’s get the facts straight (September 16). It was bought by Community Housing Association on the open market, not from Camden Council. You say that selling properties represents short-termism at its worst and that we are selling them in part to keep staff in jobs. Both assertions are untrue.

One Housing Group regularly reviews all its property assets to assess the investment required to keep them in good condition. Inevitably, some properties will not be cost effective to repair. Disposal is the only realistic option and we use the proceeds to invest in planned maintenance for the rest of our properties.

You say the sale of any property should not happen. Major repair grants, once available through the Housing Corporation, dried up many years ago, the government preferring to direct the Housing Corporation to provide grants to assist building new homes. This left housing associations with no alternative but to sell properties in the worst condition. In the current financial climate it is extremely unlikely these major repair grants are going to come back so housing associations will continue to sell properties. 

Our job is to keep our properties in a good state of repair, and we will be fully meeting the government’s Decent Homes standard by December. We have achieved this by investing more than £23million in older homes over four years. Over the same period, we have sold 10 properties in Camden; not a bad record as we now own more than 12,500 properties. We will be building just over 2,500 homes over the next few years. So we are replacing the homes sold many times over. 

Building more affordable homes and properly maintaining existing ones has been difficult enough over the last few years and is likely to be even more challenging in years to come. A serious debate on these issues will need all options to be considered.
Mick Sweeney
Group chief executive,
One Housing Group