Forum Topic

Concerns Raised About 'Unsellable' Flats Being Built in Ealing

Thanks for the update on the dire state of the housing in W13 but it is worse here in Acton.At least Brexit is not at fault as it is clearly John McDonald economics practised by Julian Bell that is the problem. Here on the Friary Park estate the London Fire Brigade report the failing of Mount Anvil's placemaking scheme. With around 40 empty flats on this 230 flat estate it is clear despite a massive marketing campaign none is interested in paying £345 a week through the unique Catalyst Housing Group Equity Loans to get 25% equity in flats with no insultation and rotten wooden windows.I was surpised to read you think the flats in Dickens Yard are very attractively priced and offer much better value compared to brand new units in developments yet to be completed. Catalyst Housing are using Locata to move social housing tenants into these Dickens Yard which surely must reduce their value or do you think the Acton Gardens flats are too closely crammed together?

Martin Cain ● 2479d22 Comments

Given Socialist arithmetic I have to say I am impressed that Khan has spent more on Public Relations in 3 years than Blair did in 10. Khan's march by Parliament and claims about facial recognition just demonstrated what a failure he is as a man and Mayor. Sorry about the misspelling that was careless as I thought this spell checked. My personal encounter was supporting a widowed mother to get help for her eldest disabled child which the member of parliament turned into the defense of a drug using shop steward in Unison. I find that a common corrupt practise with Labour MPs. I would say his bigotry particularly his hatred of the Queen was well known.No problem with Shaun Bailey taking over and would give the Brexit party £25 if it would get them to focus on things north of Potters Bar

Martin Cain ● 2451d

Blimey, where to start on Khan.He's lost control of Crossrail.Tfl are overspending by almost £1billion every year.The transport policy is skewed.He claims to be building more social housing. Not difficult given the levels to which he let it drop.He has no idea about crime save to blame a budget reduction.Not a glowing Mayoralty is it?

N V Brooks ● 2464d

Seems Mr. Cain must be a Conservative or Brexit Party voter.In what way exactly is John McDonnell (not McDonald!!) either bigoted or corrupt?In what way is Sadiq Khan 'failed'??

T. J. Bending ● 2465d

I have lived in the borough for 41 years and on an ok salary was able with a mortgage to buy a place with two and a half times salary. That was after 4 years at work. There is no way that I could afford to do that now in a comparable position. I made sacrifices but in 1982 it was easier to convert those into property ownership. My salary increased over those years by a factor of 6 but house prices have risen by a much larger factor. So you think hard work is the solution. Hard work helps but the equation has fundamentally changed.

Peter Chadburn ● 2470d

I hope the seaside is treating you well. From your comments it would appear that you think rising prices in Ealing (gentrification/improvement of the area generally) that mean first time buyers or those on lower incomes cannot afford to buy is wrong. I would suggest that people live where they can afford to live, basic free market economics. I cannot afford a 5 bedroom house in Mayfair but do I think that is unfair? No. I bought where I could afford to.I’m sure many of us recall the sacrifices we made along the way to get to where we are today. Nothing has changed there. We need to move away from pitying people who cannot afford something to teaching the value of aspiration, hard work and meritocracy. There are plenty of opportunities for people who seek them out. People have always complained about their tough lot and those same people are the ones who remain socially immobile.

James Putland ● 2470d

Julian Bell, Yvonne Johnston and the rest of the Labour Cabinet have responsibilities for the large number of vacant properties due to their general mismanagement. Badly built homes with poor services will lie empty in any area and Ealing Council have allowed a lot of poor building and have run services down so they can introduce the local authority trading companies everywhere under the direction of the corrupt and bigoted MP for Hayes and Harlington John McDonald.We had a radical housing minister but unfortunately due to devolution all London is the fiefdom of failed Mayor Sadiq Khan.We, the taxpayer, have increasingly less social housing due to its being sold off something Julian Bell fails to stop, certainly not in the case of Catalyst Housing Group.Technically Ealing has too many empty dwellings but developer Mount Anvil propose to demolish 230 family homes in Ealing and Killian Hurley claims he will build "between 930 and 990 new homes" but fails to state the cost of this project or even say how many new flats will be social housing. Mr Hurley of Cork wants a 4 fold increase in dwellings to build what are known as "Dog boxes" designed by Anne Markey of Phelan Architects and member of the Catalyst Housing Group board. Those using Catalyst Housing Group's unique Equity Loans would pay at least £375 per week for a shared ownership flat for which the buyer only gets a 25% equity. The proposed new flats fail to deliver 'habitable rooms' according to the Royal Institute of British Architects so Hurley has hired Barton Willmore to lie to the London Borough of Ealing about the impact of their 990 "Dog boxes" on health, transport and schools in Ealing.

Martin Cain ● 2473d

The London help to buy threshold IS £450,000You are confusing the maximum price of the property that will qualify with the maximum threshold.The property CAN cost up to £600,000 but the £150.000 over the threshold is ineligible for any financial support.Source: https://www.helptobuy.gov.uk/equity-loan/london-help-to-buy/Reynard Mills own website currently lists 31 available properties plus there are multiple posts on the TW8 forum about the number of 'voids'.I was, I am happy to admit, wrong about 30% voids, it is currently 22% of the available 'for sale' units.None of the family homes on the development is below the Help to Buy Threshold

N V Brooks ● 2473d

The Help to Buy threshold is £600,000 not £450,000. What is the source for the claim that Reynard Mills is 30% unsold?

Gordon Southwell ● 2473d

The price of many of these is just way out of scope for local buyer's. Stamp duty cuts only paper over the cracks. With the pound dropping no foreign buyers will buy until they feel some certainty. But we need local homes for local people. Those of us with large equity can manage this equation but most young people are totally cut off from the housing market. The reliance on trickle down just drives up prices but we need houses and flats built for rental and first time buyers. Ealing council benefits from section 106 money from these apartments built for investors without having to provide schools, health and other facilities that a normal development for locals would require. It is a mess by stamp duty cuts don't really help that much . We sold up in Ealing and moved to the seaside effectively allowing me to semi retire. But the London market is ridiculous and my healthy.

Peter Chadburn ● 2473d

Several issues discussed here which confuses the debate. If the issue raised is new builds not selling and thereby vacant, the issue is simple. Housing markets are fluid as a result of top down buying and selling. If the top is moving it trickles down throughout the price levels in the market benefitting everyone. The London market is stagnant as a result of Cameron/Osborne putting stamp duty up to levels which have stopped people moving. This was done simply to acquiesce to the tabloid media accusations that private landlords were keeping prices highs and preventing people buying. The number of private landlords has dropped significantly and properties put on the market however prices have not come down much relatively and we now have oversupply - hence vacant properties. This was smoke screen politics. The new Tory government in whatever guise it ends up being will likely bring stamp duty back down to affordable levels and the market will start moving once again. Coupled with a rebuild in consumer confidence once Brexit is sorted out one way or another and we can move forwards so buying and selling at every price point can return.

James Putland ● 2473d

The 'smaller units' are still to expensive to attract Help to Buy Support. They are, in most cases being pitched at over the £450.000 London limit.As to vacant and void units look no further than Reynard Mills (still 30% empty). Currently 98 new build properties listed on the sales websites and that is before the massive redevelopment of the south side of Brentford High Street and the Sky Horizons development.

N V Brooks ● 2473d

Yes the smaller units are more saleable because of Help to Buy. You need to read the article in referred to in the original post. I'm not aware of huge numbers of unsold units in Brentford. There is a huge amount of supply to come in that area but developments that have been completed appear to be reasonably full judging by the number of lights on at night. Which specific developments do you think have high vacancy rates?

Gordon Southwell ● 2474d

How so?Or do you believe that over-developments of sky-high shoeboxes will be any more saleable?One only has to look at Brentford with the huge number of unsold apartments to see what awaits Ealing.

N V Brooks ● 2474d

You have missed the point. You are conflating two different issues.

Gordon Southwell ● 2474d

I don't think, with respect, that I have missed the point.To isolate Filmworks, which will sell and is already selling obfuscates the issue of the wholesale 'sell-out' to developers of shoe-boxes at numerous other locations in the borough.Central Ealing locations will never be made available at levels which attract Help To Buy support. it is the developments both planned and extant in the other areas of the borough which fail to meet both minimum space standards for anything other than single occupancy and affordability.Simply piling shoe-boxes ever higher (look at what is being built on the Old Perfume Factory) is not the answer. Contract these with the development literally over the road from it which is a low-rise development of  180 family homes  (88 private sale, 46 Shared Ownership, 46 affordable rent).Lest we become a borough of studio (in my day bedsits) apartments the borough, led  by Bell, needs to adhere to the LDP.However, while it prostitutes itself at events like MIPIM in Cannes I don't see that happening.

N V Brooks ● 2475d

Think you have completely missed the point.As far as I was aware there was no suggestion that the Filmworks development was against the local development plan. It not only gained approval with a limited number of objections but the Council was being put under huge pressure to make sure the developer kept to the original timetable.These are not shoeboxes - that is the problem. They are relatively large flats in a central location and therefore are priced to sell at above the Help to Buy threshold. Hardly any units are currently shifting in that price bracket anywhere. The problem with blaming Julian Bell and the Council for everything is that you will have less credibility when you complain about matters where there may actually be serious issues such in West Ealing.

Andy Jones ● 2475d

"If you can explain to me why this is the Council's or Julian Bell's fault I'd be interested to hear."Yes, as it is simply the remit of the council to consider all applications in the light of the local development plan and framework.It has a legal responsibility under the DPD element of this to ensure that nature and location of future development is contextual to its surroundings.Over development and the approval of towers of shoeboxes clearly fails at the first hurdle of the published plane.

N V Brooks ● 2475d

Without wishing to minimise the problems raised by conflicts of interest within Ealing Council with regard to housing they aren't necessarily relevant to the issues raised in the article.The problem is mainly concentrated in the centre of Ealing where developers will be looking to sell a lot of units above £600,000. However at the moment only flats below the Help to Buy threshold are selling. This means that the problem isn't as acute in areas like W3 and W13.I don't really know what is being planned in the centre of Ealing in this higher price bracket other than the Filmworks development. This is a private sector development and all the Council has done here is try to put pressure on the developer to get on with it. Julian Bell made some unwise public pronouncements about the cinema definitely being built within a certain time scale. It is very hard to argue he wasn't aiming to act in the public interest when he did so.It was interesting to see that no local estate agents were willing to speak on the record about the issue which could suggest there is some substance to the article. The centre of Ealing is possibly going to have a lot of empty or half completed flats which might give it the air of a ghost town over the next few years. If you can explain to me why this is the Council's or Julian Bell's fault I'd be interested to hear.

Andy Jones ● 2478d

I have moved away but no doubt i will learn in time about the local practises in my new area. But really Ealing with the cabinet structure stifles discussion. Even local councillors are used as voting fodder. No wonder North Korea chose Ealing for their Embassy location!!

Peter Chadburn ● 2478d

>>RW muses>>  "overlap" between these "Housing Associations" employees who also happen at the same time to be employed at Ealing Council.  How is that even ALLOWED in any Council with an ounce of integrity?>>TH replies>> Well, let's face it. Pretty much everything has gone to hell in society (I see that the National Grid has had a major a failure this afternoon). Local councils are left to their own devices - it's akin to feeding time in the monkey house.

Tony Heath ● 2478d

"a2dominion and notting hill genesys who stopped residents seeing fire safety reports.".THAT, if true, is a total shocker.  But, why am I and everyone else on here not in the least surprised.You know, given the, errrr, "overlap" between these "Housing Associations" employees who also happen at the same time to be employed at Ealing Council.  How is that even ALLOWED in any Council with an ounce of integrity?

Rosco White ● 2478d

Don't know who John McDonald is but to blame John McDonnell's economics for this is laughable. Let's face it Julian Bell is very much a Blairite politician and the permission for the building of so many apartments ( flats with 2 toilets!!) is part of a flawed strategy. The number of these properties marketed abroad do nothing for the people on housing lists and  the people getting the social housing may benefit but at what cost. I am sure that someone paying for a £600K flat surrounded by social housing is not going to be impressed. Developers want to sell overpriced flats to foreign buyers but who is going to buy now when they know that come the end of october the pound may drop further. The housing market has been affected in ealing by the crossrail delays but also the uncertainty over brexit makes the decision to buy a bit more tricky. Developers have tried to exploit people's keenness to get on the property ladder with substandard and overpriced properties. If you saw the documentary about persimon homes you would see so many faulty houses being sold to new buyers. Subcontracting to the cheapest bidder has been going on for so many years that the quality tradespeople have dropped out of working on the building sites. I know skilled carpenters with expensive tools undercut on London apartment block projects by Ukrainian and Russian workers. In effect my close friend gave up on this 15 years ago when expected to do skilled work for a pound above the minimum wage. So the quality of so many new builds is poor and the developers getting richer. We also see secretive groups like a2dominion and notting hill genesys who stopped residents seeing fire safety reports. I am sure that if John McDonnell was in charge we would see a revival in good quality social housing. Dickens Yard and other places spend a lot on marketing but why live in a flat with service charges when for less money you could buy a house and garden in greenford or perivale. Successive governments have done the groundwork to leave us in the current mess and we need a good solution. Maybe a no deal brexit will make housing much more affordable which is no bad thing. But many will be left with negative equity. in trying to sell my house and move to the coast my house reduced a few times but i am happy with what i got in the end and the house we bought had  reduced in price. But the surveys that are published take comfort in the big houses, but for many that is an unobtainable ambition. also decent rentals are difficult to find. So we are in a mess that has been built through the greed of a minority that Thatcher/Bliar and all who followed have ignored

Peter Chadburn ● 2478d