“Two Jobs” John welcomes Housing Investment Zone in Labour Heartland

•Locals may be charged up to £272 per week rent for social homes
•Public money will build houses for sale in high cost area
•“Fast track” planning powers could leave locals with no say

John Biggs has set out his vision for a key part of Poplar as the Greater London Authority (GLA) has declared the area around Chrisp Street, north Leamouth and Aberfeldy (which planners call “Poplar Riverside”) to be a “Housing Zone”. The new designation will see winners and losers in the south of the Borough.

•£2 billion is to be invested in the area, but to date only £51 million is coming as a cash “injection” from the GLA. The Council may have to borrow the rest, which would be at preferential public sector rates – but which could take tenants and Council Tax payers years to pay back.

•There will be an estimated 3,034 new homes in the area, but only 448 are “affordable”. That’s enough “affordable” homes to accommodate around 2% of the borough’s waiting list. Housing need in this borough is for social homes at rents which ordinary people can afford to pay (so-called “target rents”, or “POD rents”) – not for exorbitantly expensive private homes. John Biggs has yet to reveal his strategy for housing the other 98% of those on the waiting list.

•The Council has not clarified which definition of “affordable” applies to this development, but the GLA usually uses the government definition of “rents at 80% of market rents” – which could see locals being expected to pay around £272 per week for a three bedroomed property. It has not yet been clarified whether the “affordable” homes will be family homes or not.

•Housing Zones are designed to deliver homes quickly, which means that planning processes are “fast tracked”, giving local people much less say.  Tower Hamlets has already lived under fast tracking planning policies – when the London Docklands Development Corporation regenerated Docklands. That fast tracking led to chaos and waste of public money.

With the announcement coming in what was only his second week in office, John Biggs spoke highly of the work done by Mayor Lutfur Rahman’s Administration on the funding bid for the development. “Receiving such a large amount of funding from the GLA to build much-needed housing in Tower Hamlets is a real achievement for the borough,” he said – obviously congratulating those who, under Mayor Lutfur Rahman’s Administration, had done this high quality work.