
Two examples of how Wandsworth Council and their developer friends are making a laughing stock of affordable housing targets have come to light this week.
The first is that the Conservative definition of an affordable home is 250,000 for the tiniest one bedroom flat on the Riverside Quarter development just past Wandsworth Park.
As usual with Wandsworth Conservatives, they've refused to build a single affordable home for rent as part of this huge scheme while the proportion of so-called affordable homes here is barely 15%, despite requirements to make 50% of these huge developments affordable.
Now the Council will say that anyone interested in their poky quarter-of-a-million pound flats (which have all been bunged close to the railway line - the Tories don't believe ordinary Wandsworth residents deserve riverside views) only has to buy a minimum 25% share of that - and for some a 62,500 mortgage is more attainable than one for 250,000.
But that's not the end of the costs. Because while you're repaying that 62,500 mortgage (that's an outgoing of roughly 450 a month) you also have to pay rent on the 75% you don't own - so add another 260 a month to that total. Plus, these are serviced blocks - so add the service charges on top.
And then, if that wasn't crippling enough, I was contacted just today by a resident of the 'affordable' section of Castle Court, which is part of the Brewhouse Lane development by Putney Bridge. For the privilege of being able to park off-street (which she has to, because the council has disqualified residents of these developments from owning a residents' parking permit) her landlord, St George, is demanding the outrageous sum of 12,000!
All this adds up to totally unaffordable 'affordable' housing. It's nothing short of a scandal that whilst our local housing crisis grows ever worse the Conservatives block affordable homes, have the front to claim a 250,000 flat is affordable, and allow their developer chums to fleece those local families.
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