Birmingham council to sell off athletes’ village homes at more than £300m loss

18 comments

1. Another failed Labour controlled council investment scheme. How disappointing. I suppose the constituents will just eat the loss.

2. I don’t understand why they have to sell them. Why not turn them into council flats?

3. > with the council unable to sell them due to a lack of “market appetite” for one- and two-bedroom apartments in the area…

   Nobody wrote that with a straight face.

   > and issues with mortgage providers valuing the properties at less than they were being sold

   Oh there we go. No appetite for _overpriced_ flats

4. I hope someone has a quick check on this private bidder who has yet to be named, see if they have any links to local government.

5. >Birmingham city council said 213 of the newly built homes would be retained for council housing use but Khan said he would call on the government to provide the funding so that all 968 homes could be kept.

   It’s a shame because it has the potential to be a nice community (I walk past there whenever I’m on my way to villa park, and it’s a vast improvement on the eye compared to the dingy 60s uni buildings that used to be there). Hopefully Khan can convince central govt to provide the money to keep them as social housing.

6. So a private firm will borrow money to buy the flats from the council at basically half price, then they’ll probably rent them out to social housing tenants so the council will end up paying the mortgage on them.

   This is a microcosm of what is wrong in this country at the moment, we (government, councils etc) own less and less of the country and get to pay private equity firms for the privilege of using what should be national assets.

7. They may as well host the next commonwealth games (nobody else seems to want to!) and have a second to at gentrifying Perry barr! They knocked down some quality student accommodations to build these in an area where you can pick up a 3 bed semi for sub 200k.

8. Birmingham council is the only builder in UK selling homes at a loss?

   Of course, selling all of them to a private company:

   >Ayoub Khan, the independent MP for Perry Barr where the apartments are located, said it was an “absolute scandal” that the Labour-led authority had agreed last week to sell more than 700 homes to a private company in a deal forecast to result in a multimillion-pound loss.

9. £325m to build 968 utilitarian one/two bed flats sounds excessive? Looking on Rightmove, £325k gives you a large choice of superficially sexy 2 bed / 2 bath flats in Birmingham.

10. I suspect these flats wouldn’t meet the minimum size specifications of council flats

11. These things usually end up costing loads. We get gaslit into thinking they are great value. In reality in most metrics they are bad value for money.

12. They should keep them and use them to house boat migrants.

13. Classic case of a requirement for Government oversight of local councils. This should be blocked and the flats turned into social housing. If there is a case for a some form of grant or central govermnet fiscal guarantee let it be made as part of the ongoing process.

14. Could these not help go towards the house requirement Rayner is putting in place. And if so could the gov not step in and like, start that off and then release it back to the local authority at a later time? Or does it legally have to just be dealt with by the council and be sold regardless?

15. Are you telling me a council has taken taxpayers money and managed to make it worth less?

    Well consider me shocked.

16. I’ve often wondered why councils who are generally packed full of the lowest-hanging fruit believe that they can run a business successfully when none of them have any business acumen. When they build huge complexes such as this on your money, and then sell them at a loss to their friends for £300m off the build price. They should be criminally prosecuted and the managers who were responsible for this mess should be jailed.

17. They’re actually in a decent place if you work in the city and don’t want to live in the city. The new train station there will get you to work pretty fast

18. You’ll be surprised how much new builds lose value after selling on the second hand market.