Battersea Power Station Project

[anotheoldgit]

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2260042/Battersea-Power-Station-Inside-planned-penthouse-flats-cost-cool-6m-each.html

When some of our young cannot even afford to get on the bottom rung of the housing ladder isn't a project like this simply a disgrace?

[emmie]

very few of us can afford to live here now, its for the uber wealthy or those just passing through, like tourists.

[emmie]

a studio at 338k, who said living here was cheap must be mad.

[anotheoldgit]

friedgreentomato

/// and some are too lazy to leave home!! ///

Good job you belong to the flock, I hate to think what the comments would have been if I had made such an unsympathetic comment.

[Gromit]

// the London Authority could have made a compulsory purchase when the building ceased to be a power station, and then built affordable housing //

Station A was decommissioned in 1975, nearly 40 years ago. If the local authority were going to do anything with the site they would have done by now.

And what you are calling for sounds like you want local tax payers to build council housing. Now if Mrs Thatcher hadn't sold all that off in the first place...

[jno]

it itsn't cheap, em, but it is low by London standards. And being next to the river is a prime position.

[anotheoldgit]

Gromit

/// And what you are calling for sounds like you want local tax payers to build council housing. Now if Mrs Thatcher hadn't sold all that off in the first
place... ///

That old chestnut again Gromit?

Don't you realise that most of those who chose to buy their house, instead of being subsidised by the Council Tax payer, would still be occupying their Council houses, thus there wouldn't be a huge release of vacant houses?

[woofgang]

well quite a lot of them would be dead by now AOG.....

[emmie]

in our borough and others, many council tenants bought their homes, it was a good initiative, the trouble came when the local authorities stopped looking after the rest of their portfolio. They let many homes run down to such an extent they sold them off to property developers, who are the ones doing them up and making a mint, which Also created a black hole of affordable homes. Those council tenants who bought are not necessarily sitting pretty either, because the local council can charge what they like for repairs, using the contractors they wish and you have little or no say in regards to what repairs, or indeed work needs to be done on the property, be it house or flat. If you buy privately then you would get your own builders in to do the work, but this is not how the local authorities have been working. I could give you chapter and verse but why bother, it's all the fault of Mrs T, you hate her and that is patently obvious.

[emmie]

jno, the area we are in is now virtually unaffordable to live in, when the people who are buying up the area are the extremely wealthy, who can afford more than a million for a two bed flat, this is total madness, as all that will happen, is that the not well off at all will be moved out by the council, as they are sitting on some nice expensive council property at least in today's market, thus creating a one tier system, where once we had a diverse community of peoples and wealth.

[Bazile]

em10
// ...you hate her and that is patently obvious. //

Just like you hate Tony Blair and all members of the labour party ; which is patently obvious ?

[Gromit]

// Don't you realise that most of those who chose to buy their house, instead of being subsidised by the Council Tax payer, would still be occupying their Council houses //

So why are you insisting that the local authority should be subsidised housing on this site? A little more consistency please AOG.

[emmie]

that was for Gromit's benefit, who rarely makes any remark about her without having a dig, as to Blair, not worth hating,

[jno]

that's been going on for centuries, em. In the Middle Ages mansions in the middle of London would quite likely have slum dwellings all around them. But ever since then the rich have slowly been trying to get away from the poor (eg the development of London squares in the 18th century, strictly for the well-to-do). It's just capitalism and the market economy, which since Thatcher's day at least has been the only template available to us. The rich will pay more for a river view, which prices the poor out of it.

As you say, councils are now exporting the poor

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2012/apr/24/london-exporting-council-tenants

[Gromit]

It's not rocket science. You sell off the affordable housing and there is non for the next generation. If the profits had have gone into building new affordable housing then everyone would be happy now. But there was no such foresight and we are in the mess we are now.

[emmie]

it isn't just the river views but all over the capital. In pretty much the same way that many have moaned that they cannot afford to buy in their home town, because of incomers with more money, those wanting a second home, then it is the same here. Except all the poorer people will be moved out, the local authorities have been doing it, and our borough is no exception. Which makes one wonder how the services that are provided to the uber wealthy will happen. Cleaners, shop keepers, the small business man, woman, having to hike into the capital to keep them in clean shirts and clean homes.

[emmie]

there are hundreds of thousands of empty properties that could be utilised, right across the country, they may need some work, but that would fill the shortfall in housing. It's out there, but it would need someone with a bit of brain in the local authorities, and government to get this sorted. Get the dormant building, construction industry to help with the renovations, get those on the waiting lists into the properties, pay a nominal rent for six months whilst helping to do them up, once done they are charged a reasonable rent. Gets those people off the waiting list, gives work to the construction industry, and the local council has money from the rents from these new tenants. What is so fluffing difficult about that

[Canary42]

If this had been your first ever post AOG, I wonder how many responders would have taken a different line !

For once, I tend to agree with you, it's disgraceful.

[Gromit]

// there are hundreds of thousands of empty properties that could be utilised...but it would need someone with a bit of brain in the local authorities //

Most of the empty property is privately owned. Are you saying these assets should be compulsory purchased? Would the state pay the market value or would the landlords be short changed? Where exactly would the money come from?

[emmie]

it is disgrace.

[emmie]

if the government wants to seriously sort out it's housing shortages it could compulsory purchase, they have before, unless they strong arm the landlords into making their empty properties habitable and affordable. Why do they own property if not to let them out? if they have been sitting empty for years because the landlord can't be bothered, then they should be compulsory purchased. It's frankly criminal that people are being shoved into bed and breakfast when so much housing is out there.
who sets the market rate, who says that the house next door to us is worth 4 million.