Luxury flats and skyscrapers are built on formerly state-owned land – while a lack of affordable housing is condemned as a ‘massive missed opportunity’
By Lucie Heath, Tom Saunders, Chloe Chaplain
December 10, 2022 6:00 am(Updated December 12, 2022 8:35 am)
Just a stone’s throw away from Manchester Victoria Station, two skyscrapers are currently in the process of being built on land that was once owned by Network Rail.
Reaching 20 and 25 storeys respectively, the skyscrapers will contain 520 new luxury apartments, but no social housing for the nearly 13,000 people on Manchester City Council’s housing waiting list.
The development, by “urban regeneration” firm Muse, is one of hundreds of schemes that are being built on land sold by the Government to developers since 2011 that have failed to deliver one single affordable home, an investigation by i can reveal.
Current national planning guidelines say that developers building schemes larger than 10 homes should make at least 10 per cent of them affordable, although local councils can vary this. In London, the benchmark is 35 per cent, and even higher for public land.
i has obtained a database that reveals the names of developers who were sold land, hospitals, prisons and offices as part of a mass sell-off of the public estate over the past decade.
It provides fresh insight into the secretive Government deals that took place under a scheme that was supposed to help alleviate the housing crisis, but some have argued has actually made the problem worse.
Running from 2011 until 2020, the Government’s Public Land for Housing programme aimed to support the building of 260,000 homes through the sell off of public assets, including empty land and disused hospitals, schools and military barracks.
Affordable housing is a scam.
The entire planning system needs to be simplified. Stop mandating shit of developers which they don’t deliver.
Flat % of all sales goes to council.
Council then builds social housing, without having to pay post planning consent value.
Penalty system for developers who don’t bring the estate up to code to be adopted.
Council not developer should be responsible for building schools/libraries/GP etc.
Even if they’re meant to build “affordable” homes the developers just don’t bother and no one says anything anyway
This isn’t going to be particularly popular here, but I don’t know if I really buy affordable housing targets. I’d worry that they are yet another bit of red tape that prevents developers from building. I think I’d rather see incentives around building dense developments that provide lots of homes rather than some chunk of houses that have some arbitrary price targets.
Granted much of this is US-based, but I think the government should be doing whatever it can to encourage more and more housing units to be constructed, regardless of their price point.
After all, if you don’t build a £500k flat in an area, then the £400k flats are going to become your £500k flats.
The government could build council housing on a massive scale if it chose. Keeping people in expensive private rentals and purchases is a deliberate choice. That’s what happens when you live in a class based society, the ruling class makes policies that suit it’s own interests unless it’s forced to concede
I bet they also sold the land cheap and a member of the govt is on the board of the developer
It is a joke. If you spend £1000 a month on rent you can afford the mortgage. Over the 20 year period you spent £240,000 and all you have done is pay someone elses mortgage.
Private rental is theft.
And which MPs or political groups have / had shares in the developers?
We need a state-owned house builder. These developers are building houses that will have to be retrofitted as soon as they’re finished. Because all their incentives are to cut costs and drive as much profits as possible. They’ll never be able to build the homes we need and deserve as a country.
Because its all about squeezing as much profit as possible out of every slice of land
Isn’t it an odd terminology? Affordable homes? Shouldn’t most homes be, well, affordable? What if cars were the same, with 99% cars being Lamborghinis and Ferraris and Aston Martins? Almost nobody can afford to rent them, but the lucky 1% manage to secure a high mileage 1996 Rover 800 that they own outright but it leaks constantly and doesn’t pass MOT
I live in a 2 bed council flat £600 a month. The properties to my left and right were bought by buy to let landlords, the current tenants pay £1700 a month for exactly the same flat as me.
There is no difference in the standards, except my neighbors are paying someone else’s mortgage. There should be more social housing, it is day light robbery when working people have to claim benefits to fund their landlords mortgage.
England is becoming more and more like the US daily… except wages aren’t even mildly close for people in England and the rest of the UK.. Glad I bailed in 2020
Said it before an I’ll say it again, greed & self-interest will be the ultimate downfall of this society.
14 comments
Luxury flats and skyscrapers are built on formerly state-owned land – while a lack of affordable housing is condemned as a ‘massive missed opportunity’
By Lucie Heath, Tom Saunders, Chloe Chaplain
December 10, 2022 6:00 am(Updated December 12, 2022 8:35 am)
Just a stone’s throw away from Manchester Victoria Station, two skyscrapers are currently in the process of being built on land that was once owned by Network Rail.
Reaching 20 and 25 storeys respectively, the skyscrapers will contain 520 new luxury apartments, but no social housing for the nearly 13,000 people on Manchester City Council’s housing waiting list.
The development, by “urban regeneration” firm Muse, is one of hundreds of schemes that are being built on land sold by the Government to developers since 2011 that have failed to deliver one single affordable home, an investigation by i can reveal.
Current national planning guidelines say that developers building schemes larger than 10 homes should make at least 10 per cent of them affordable, although local councils can vary this. In London, the benchmark is 35 per cent, and even higher for public land.
i has obtained a database that reveals the names of developers who were sold land, hospitals, prisons and offices as part of a mass sell-off of the public estate over the past decade.
It provides fresh insight into the secretive Government deals that took place under a scheme that was supposed to help alleviate the housing crisis, but some have argued has actually made the problem worse.
Running from 2011 until 2020, the Government’s Public Land for Housing programme aimed to support the building of 260,000 homes through the sell off of public assets, including empty land and disused hospitals, schools and military barracks.
Affordable housing is a scam.
The entire planning system needs to be simplified. Stop mandating shit of developers which they don’t deliver.
Flat % of all sales goes to council.
Council then builds social housing, without having to pay post planning consent value.
Penalty system for developers who don’t bring the estate up to code to be adopted.
Council not developer should be responsible for building schools/libraries/GP etc.
Even if they’re meant to build “affordable” homes the developers just don’t bother and no one says anything anyway
This isn’t going to be particularly popular here, but I don’t know if I really buy affordable housing targets. I’d worry that they are yet another bit of red tape that prevents developers from building. I think I’d rather see incentives around building dense developments that provide lots of homes rather than some chunk of houses that have some arbitrary price targets.
There is research that shows that market-rate housing tempers rent and property prices in the area it’s built: https://www.rate.com/research/news/market-rate-housing
Granted much of this is US-based, but I think the government should be doing whatever it can to encourage more and more housing units to be constructed, regardless of their price point.
After all, if you don’t build a £500k flat in an area, then the £400k flats are going to become your £500k flats.
The government could build council housing on a massive scale if it chose. Keeping people in expensive private rentals and purchases is a deliberate choice. That’s what happens when you live in a class based society, the ruling class makes policies that suit it’s own interests unless it’s forced to concede
I bet they also sold the land cheap and a member of the govt is on the board of the developer
It is a joke. If you spend £1000 a month on rent you can afford the mortgage. Over the 20 year period you spent £240,000 and all you have done is pay someone elses mortgage.
Private rental is theft.
And which MPs or political groups have / had shares in the developers?
We need a state-owned house builder. These developers are building houses that will have to be retrofitted as soon as they’re finished. Because all their incentives are to cut costs and drive as much profits as possible. They’ll never be able to build the homes we need and deserve as a country.
Because its all about squeezing as much profit as possible out of every slice of land
Isn’t it an odd terminology? Affordable homes? Shouldn’t most homes be, well, affordable? What if cars were the same, with 99% cars being Lamborghinis and Ferraris and Aston Martins? Almost nobody can afford to rent them, but the lucky 1% manage to secure a high mileage 1996 Rover 800 that they own outright but it leaks constantly and doesn’t pass MOT
I live in a 2 bed council flat £600 a month. The properties to my left and right were bought by buy to let landlords, the current tenants pay £1700 a month for exactly the same flat as me.
There is no difference in the standards, except my neighbors are paying someone else’s mortgage. There should be more social housing, it is day light robbery when working people have to claim benefits to fund their landlords mortgage.
England is becoming more and more like the US daily… except wages aren’t even mildly close for people in England and the rest of the UK.. Glad I bailed in 2020
Said it before an I’ll say it again, greed & self-interest will be the ultimate downfall of this society.