Luxury flats project by UK’s two richest people has no social housing
The UK’s two richest people have been allowed to avoid planning rules that should have required them to build 98 affordable flats for key workers and low income workers at their new £1.2bn luxury development in London.
The Hinduja brothers, named by the Sunday Times as the wealthiest people in Britain with a £28.5bn fortune, won approval to develop the historic Old War Office near Downing Street into 85 luxury flats and a 120-room five-star Raffles hotel.
The Guardian can reveal that the OWO development – in which one four bedroom flat has sold for more than £40m – should under planning rules contain 8,000 square metres of affordable housing – enough for 98 flats.
However, Westminster city council agreed to allow the Hindujas to develop the building with no affordable housing after their agents claimed that it would “not be economically feasible” to do so.
They were given the go-ahead despite more than 4,000 families waiting on the borough’s affordable housing list, with many holding on more than 10 years for a home. There were until recently thousands more people in the queue, but councils across the country drastically cut their waiting lists by making it harder to remain eligible.
Under planning policies designed to help tackle the housing crisis, all new residential developments should be made up of at least 30% affordable housing.
“The applicant is providing no on-site affordable housing in this instance stating that such provision would not be practical or viable,” planning documents show.
The council’s planning policy states that if it is not possible to provide affordable housing on site, developers must provide affordable housing elsewhere in the borough or make a payment to the council’s affordable housing fund.
The
Read more on theguardian.com
