Losers in social homes stakes

Published: 21 April, 2011

• WESTMINSTER Council’s much-trumpeted, multi-million pound housebuilding programme is set to deliver hundreds of new affordable homes in the borough, it claims in its Westminster Reporter, spring edition.

Well I want to highlight the plight of a forgotten group – housing association tenants – who it seems are being completely overlooked.

Opportunities to create new housing schemes in Soho are naturally scarce, given our neighbourhood, a fact most residents appreciate. So when a new scheme does come to fruition there is a palpable sense of anticipation in the community; particularly among local families coping with overcrowding.

Last autumn, Marshall Street Regeneration Project was successfully completed and of the 15 properties set aside for the council 11 were social-rented family homes available only for priority households on the housing register. 

Nothing for HA residents. 

I’ll come to these remaining four units later. 

This month four new homes, above a former clip joint in Great Windmill Street, will be completed and Westminster, again, will get 100 per cent nomination rights for all lettings. In both instances once the schemes are occupied with the council’s “priority households” responsibility is handed over to the local registered social landlord – Soho Housing Association (SHA) – to own and manage. Check the label, say the council, we’ve delivered “local” housing! 

Well SHA residents will not be fooled by this veneer of localism. We have been excluded, plain and simple.    

Fostering sustainable communities is all about meeting the diverse needs of existing residents as well as future ones. 

The previous Labour government stopped giving due weight (housing points) to applicants with strong local connections, preferring instead to reward “need” alone, and those adept at the tick-box lottery. 

It seems our Tory council is continuing in the same vein. 

Surely the council are entitled to house only those on their priority housing register if they’re actually funding the scheme, right? 

Unfortunately they are the only developers in town, bar the private sector. SHA’s funding for new developments has been non-existent for many years or it comes with strings from the funding authority that mitigates against SHA’s tenants.      

It’s not all doom and gloom, of course, families languishing on SHA’s transfer list can have their pick of four one-bedroom homes in Marshall Street.

Thoughtfully these are earmarked for us to buy on a shared ownership basis. 

And a snip at £460,000.

ALF TABODA
Great Pulteney Street, W1