At last night’s Planning Committee, one of the developments councillors discussed was an application by Bexley Co, the council’s housing development company, to redevelop the former Bexley maternity hospital with new buildings at Bursted Woods, to provide 121 dwellings, comprising of houses and flats and 18 shared ownership units being the only affordable housing being offered on this site, which is a derisory amount in the middle of a housing crisis.
In the report presented last night, a bizarre claim was made in the viability report that the development would generate a £1.1m negative land, which led the consultant to identify a deficit of £3.3m to justify not contributing for additional affordable housing. This contradicts the council’s development company, Bexley Co’s business plan presented to the Cabinet which stated that the development would achieve a £6.1m profit. This again shows clearly that Bexley Tories do not want to maximise affordable housing in Bexley.
Cllr. Larry Ferguson, Bexley Labour Group Planning spokesperson said:
‘Bexley Tories are not listening to residents again! Residents raised concerns about the lack of social housing on the Bursted Woods application this evening, at a time of a housing crisis in Bexley and rising costs of Temporary Accommodation. Bexley’s Tories agreed for their property arm Bexley Co to make £6.1m profit whilst denying residents homes they can afford.’
The application did not meet the 150-unit threshold for referral to the Mayor of London, who would have done an independent viability report, to challenge these reports which do not provide enough affordable housing. It is disappointing that this development is nowhere near the London Plan threshold level of 50% affordable housing on land in public ownership.