Homes planned on the Fiveways allotments?
| K Harper |
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Sun 16 Oct 2016, 21:16 (last edited on Mon 17 Oct 2016, 17:13) Rosemary, yes the council did accept £71,000; if you want to read of this go to WODC planning simple search and look at the Ditchley Road application this will show the application for the first six houses applied for; look for document number L15043DB entitled affordable housing offer. This letter is from land agents Savills; the letter is to the planning department and is stamped private and confidential for some reason! As you can see in the letter the developers claimed that there are exceptional costs associated with this site but at that moment in time they had only applied for six houses and there are currently 10 being built which would have increased the viability of the site. As stated by Savills under the 2014 draft affordable housing policy the developers would have had to pay £100 per square metre in community payback for the scheme. As far as I can see the majority of houses being built are over 300 square metres; if you multiply this by 10 houses you get 3,000 squares metres times £100 per square metre, making a total of £300,000 for the community payback scheme towards affordable housing not £71,000. Unfortunately at that time the council had no power to enforce this policy but they could have insisted on some affordable housing being built as there were 6 or more houses being constructed. In my opinion this has been a flagrant attempt to avoid building affordable homes within this scheme. The council would have been well within their rights to refuse this application on those grounds. As far as I can see the developers were not asked to prove the exceptional associated costs with this site and still have not been. These observations are stated without prejudice or malice. We need entrepreneurs and developers to work with us to enable our community to thrive but not at the expense of asset stripping. On a lighter note I attach a link to an article regarding Telford and Wrekin council taking delivery of a housing unit constructed for £60,000; although technically not an eco-home it supports my comments in a previous posting as to costings. This article shows what can be achieved with local authorities having the will and taking the initiative. Ps! Also An interesting programme you may like to listen to on Radio 4 Analysis series |