Council’s plans for affordable homes approved
AFFORDABLE HOUSING ‘PARAMOUNT IMPORTANCE’
KENSINGTON and Chelsea Council’s first foray into house building to help with the shortage of affordable homes in the borough has got the green light.
Four plans to build 97 homes on pockets of land in north Kensington got the green light at its planning committee recently.
They are the first of a planned 600 new homes the council wants to build in response to the housing crisis in the borough, put into the bleak spotlight by the Grenfell Tower tragedy in 2017.
The following year it began looking at building homes on land it owned with the “maximum possible number of affordable homes”.
The council has won £33.6 million in funding from the Greater London Authority to help get its project off the ground.
The first spade has to be in the ground by March 2022 to secure the funding.
The council’s deputy leader Kim Taylor-Smith, who has responsibility for housing, said it was of “paramount importance” to build affordable homes.
This first stage has a mixed tenure with 73% of the homes classed as affordable – made up of 51% on offer as social rented homes, 23% as intermediate rent and 26% available on the open market.
He said: “We have the second highest level of homelessness in London and although the council does not have enough land to build our way out of this crisis, these social homes will give some of our most vulnerable residents a secure, permanent home.”
The four schemes in the first round were approved unanimously by the planning committee.
In the two years leading up to the Grenfell tragedy, the council spent £61 million buying property as investments through rent or increasing in value, a joint investigation by the Huffington Post, Bureau of Investigation Journalism’s Bureau Local and Local Democracy Reporting Service revealed.
One of these – a former undertakers in Hewer Street which the council bought in March 2017 for £8.5m – will be transformed as part of the housing plan.
The two-storey building used to store donations after Grenfell will be partially demolished to create 20 new homes – 10 at market value and 10 at discounted London living rent.
The building has recently been used by property guardians.
Committee vice-chairman Charles O’Connor (Con, Holland ward) said: “It is an improvement and seems a good scheme.”
However, Cllr Tom Bennett said “it could be a missed opportunity” to keep some of the original features.
The scheme also includes 32 new homes – 20 for social rent – on vacant land at Acklam Road near the Al-Manaar Muslim Cultural Heritage Centre.
Part of the building is eight storeys, with a three-storey block and community space.
“The new buildings are of a high quality”, said the council’s principle planning officer, Joe Whitworth.
Councillor Tom Bennett (Con Redcliffe) asked about air quality and was told garden spaces were sited away from the road and a further air quality assessment will be done by an expert consultant before people move in.
Mohammed Bakhtiar (Lab, St Helen’s) also raised concerns about pollution and was told the plans include purifying systems in the building.
An existing vacant community space in Kensal Road will be replaced with a five and seven-storey building surrounding a courtyard.
It includes 37 new homes – 27 at social rent and 10 at the discounted London living rent – and a ground-floor shop.
The final plan to demolish a two-storey house at St Helen’s Gardens, in north Kensington, and replace it with eight new homes – two on offer at discounted London Living Rent and two at social rent with four on offer on the open market – was also approved.
The council hopes to build 168 more homes at Edenham Way and 90 at Barlby Road in the next phase of its plan.