Judge orders release of files showing decision to axe flats near O2 arena scheme

[editor]

Ooh now this could get very interesting indeed. I hope criminal charges are made.

A judge has ordered a London council to release secret documents it used to justify a decision to axe 500 affordable homes from a £5 billion development beside the O2 arena.

Greenwich council allowed developer Knight Dragon to reduce the proportion of affordable homes from 38 per cent to 21 per cent in 11 of the blocks — and remove every unit of social housing from four riverside towers overlooking Canary Wharf.

Campaigner Shane Brownie was blocked by the Labour-run council when he made a freedom of information request in June 2013 for documents outlining the deal to be released.

It eventually released two reports but withheld key financial details, claiming they were commercially confidential.

Now the First-Tier Tribunal’s General Regulatory Chamber has rejected an appeal against disclosure from Greenwich council and found in favour of Mr Brownie and the Information Commissioner, who had ordered the council to release the uncensored documents.

Mr Brownie said: “This is a victory for transparency and openness in the planning system. Greenwich council and the Mayor need to learn lessons from this decision that resulted in the loss of over 500 affordable homes.”

His lawyer Ugo Hayter, from the human rights team at Leigh Day, said: “There is a growing trend that councils are routinely accepting viability reports and acquiescing to a much decreased percentage of affordable homes on big developments.

“This is particularly concerning where communities of predominantly social housing are routinely being decanted to make way for developments.”

The withheld information related to 11 plots where 3,100 homes are due to be built. Under the original planning consent, 1,178 (38 per cent) would have been affordable. This was cut to 651 (21 per cent). Hong Kong-based developer Knight Dragon had acquired an interest in the site in 2012 and twice succeeded in getting Greenwich to reduce the duty to provide affordable homes, and to allow them to be built on three blocks in less desirable areas.

Chamber president Judge Nicholas Warren, sitting with two lay members, said two factors backed full disclosure — the number of affordable homes and their location, and the fact that Knight Dragon knew about the requirement prior to acquiring an interest in the development.

Greenwich council and Knight Dragon declined to comment.

http://www.standard.co.uk/news/lond...-500-flats-near-o2-arena-scheme-10043482.html

 

[bluescreen]

It does stink, doesn't it?

 

[editor]

It does stink, doesn't it?

To high heaven.

 

[treelover]

Very British Corruption.

 

[salem]

What's the difference in price between an 'affordable' and 'regular' house? I know they're not necessarily comparable in quality of finish but that shouldn't make much difference to the value to the developer.

Plucking a figure from the air of £100k difference that'd be £50m extra profit this decision made the developer. When you consider those numbers it'd seem weird if brown paper bags were not involved. Do councilors/council officials ever get caught out?

 

[SpookyFrank]

Plucking a figure from the air of £100k difference that'd be £50m extra profit this decision made the developer. When you consider those numbers it'd seem weird if brown paper bags were not involved. Do councilors/council officials ever get caught out?

But developers are allowed to bribe local authorities to get them to drop their affordable housing requirements. You don't even need the brown envelope any more. And even though a shortage of affordable housing is guaranteed to cost a local authority dearly in the long term, in the short term they might desperately need that one-off cash payment to keep services going for another few months; or indeed to pay to keep housing families in B&Bs because there are no proper homes for them.

 

[bluescreen]

But those sort of arrangements, and Section 106 agreements generally, aren't usually "commercially confidential" are they?

 

[SpookyFrank]

But those sort of arrangements, and Section 106 agreements generally, aren't usually "commercially confidential" are they?

No, but the 'viability assesments' on which decisions about affordable housing quotas are supposedly based are confidential. These assessments are supposedly an independent analysis of how much profit a developer can expect to make from a project, and if this profit figure is too low then the developer will say that they have to build less social or affordable housing than they're supposed to. Trouble is that these viability studies often give pretty dubious conclusions, they're comissioned by the developers themselves and they're not open to public scrutiny.

The confidentiality thing is bogus, but it works out very well for both developers and crooked councillors.

 

[Bahnhof Strasse]

It's fucking wrong, a labour council using public money to go to court to keep hidden deals to reduce the number of houses that normal folk may stand a slight chance of being able to afford. Southwark's doing the same thing with the Heygate.

 

[SpookyFrank]

They're basically covering up their own wrongdoing, or it certainly looks like they are. Everyone's got a right to do that of course, but if it's your head on the block you should be the one paying for the fucking lawyers.

 

[Dogsauce]

The rule to allow revised social housing quotas in developments was (officially) brought in to allow developers to proceed with schemes that had become unviable due to the fall in property prices since the recession. The motive was to restart house building on stalled schemes.

It shouldn't be an option for any part of the country where there has been no fall in prices, such as London, and is an abuse of the scheme, one that councils and the Mayor in particular (friends with a lot of moneyed developers) seem happy with.