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£90m plan to create housing from derelict homes on North Circular
Katharine Barney, City Hall Reporter29.09.09
Hundreds of dilapidated homes on the North Circular are to be renovated under £90million plans by Boris Johnson.
The homes, owned by Transport for London, are being sold off to housing association Notting Hill Housing Trust for £56.9million.
They were bought by the Government in the Seventies to allow a major expansion of A406 in Enfield. The plan was abandoned but the homes remained empty, and were inherited by TfL in 2000. Most were not inhabitable and no money was invested in their repair.
The Mayor said: "During the election campaign I highlighted how unacceptable it was that the GLA group was sitting on large numbers of unoccupied properties. With the hard work of Enfield councillors, TfL and the Homes and Communities Agency, this blot on London's landscape will be removed." Most of the funding - £54.4 million - will come from the HCA, chaired by the Mayor, while the housing association will invest £35million in renovations.
Enfield council leader Mike Rye said 400 affordable homes would be created, 75 per cent of which will be affordable through social rent and 25 per cent in affordable buy schemes.
Work on the three-year project will start in the new year.
Reader views (11)
NO NO NO, create space for work, NOT homes.
Create industry centres create buildings that people can use for work premises, create the means of generating prosperity not the means of languishing in leisure.
These days for every house that is created there is a work opportunity lost. Lets stop the tide of housing in London and allow the creation of income, housing can be built in the wider spaces well outside of London !
- James, City of London
Let's hope they don't allocate them to the scum and vermin that live in Bardwell and they are given to decent human beings.
- Bj, sydney Australia
This derelict land is where the North circular was going to be expanded to ease the traffic gridlock.
Selling off this land fixes the problem of finding the money to improve the road. The same thing happened in west London with parts of the A40 and that has road traffic almost stationary for most of the day and the A13 in East London that also suffers from under investment,now its North Londons turn.
- Mr S.Port, London
THE NORTH CIRCULAR ROAD IS A DISGRACE. THEY WERE BUYING UP HOUSES TO WIDEN THE ROAD FIFTY YEARS AGO, THEN DID NOTHING. RESULT LONDON'S PREMIER ROAD IS A PERMANENT BOTTLENECK WITH DAILY ACCIDENTS.
IT SHOULD BE LEFT AS IT IS , A MEMORIAL TO THE PATHETIC POLITICIANS OF BOTH PARTIES IN THE LAST FIFTY YEARS.
- Alan Green, England. The forgotten country.
"The homes, owned by Transport for London, are being sold off to housing association Notting Hill Housing Trust for £56.9million.while the housing association will invest £35million in renovations" = £91.9 million
divided by 400 homes = £229,750 renovation cost per home. Is this is correct, then something is wrong here.
- Vijay S., London
Good idea. It's about time these and other derelict buildings are brought back to use. Maybe if people are forced to live with the North Circ on their doorstep they will get their fat backsides away from watching Jeremy Kyle and get a job to pay for somewhere decent.
- Nobby Clark, Perth, the Scottish one
How come they're derelict?!
- Roz, France
If they are housing association location doesn't really matter.
If you are getting your home subsidised by the taxpayer, why would you moan at getting something for nothing?
- P Staker, Londonistan.
Better a generation late than never I suppose. Unfortunately accommodation in London is so tight people are prepared to move into such noisy surroundings.
- W R Stevenson, London SE26
How are they going to build 400 new homes on that stretch of land? Those poor people are going to be crammed into tiny flats with the A406 as their front garden. If they're unfortunate enough to be driving home from anywhere North of their flats it's going to take them about 90 minutes just to from Tesco's to their front door - at any time of the day!
- North Londoner, London
Deaf people only should apply.
- Barry L-Smith, London
