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Haringey Council saga must not curb the sector’s ambition
It would be a shame if bold thinking on regeneration and growth were lost following the Haringey Council saga, writes Emma Maier
The long-running battle over the Haringey Development Vehicle (HDV) has all but ended, with news that council leader Claire Kober will stand down after the elections in May. The story has repercussions beyond the north London borough.
To supporters, the HDV was an example of ambitious local leadership to leverage local assets to draw in vast private investment, deliver 6,400 homes, create 20,000 jobs and make returns to fund a programme to tackle ingrained, intergenerational social and cultural problems.
The 50:50 joint venture with Lendlease was to ensure that the council retained control.
To critics, many aligned with Labour’s Momentum wing, it represented handing over the family silver – mass privatisation that risked backfiring if the company went backrupt and would lead to so-called social cleansing, where existing residents are forced out.
Concerns about social cleansing are in direct contradiction to clearly stated “firm guarantees” giving existing tenants a right to return to their estate, and to be rehoused on equivalent terms and rents.
The principle of using council assets and securing private investment is increasingly underpinning local government’s ability to re-restart housebuilding programmes, given the lack of government funding and the challenges posed by Right to Buy.
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Yet there are reasons to be sceptical that the HDV could live up to its ambitions. For all the council’s confidence that it would retain control, in fact the crucial point is that no party had overall control, making deadlock a very real possibility.
Essentially, progress with the development would be impossible unless deemed viable by the private sector partner, effectively leaving the council beholden to Lendlease in an increasingly difficult market for regeneration schemes.
There is a question mark over whether the council could really deliver its stretching social ambitions.
If the HDV had pulled through, the extent of the party divide in the borough would likely have thwarted its progress.
"There is no plan B from campaigners to achieve housing growth and improvement at scale"
The demise of the project creates few, if any, winners.
A very significant amount of time, focus and investment has been ploughed into the project. Crucially, there is no plan B from campaigners to achieve housing growth and improvement at scale in an environment where the Treasury has no plans to open its cheque book.
As councils across the country explore council-led growth and regeneration programmes, they will study the fall-out of the HDV. There is a danger that they will conclude it is politically impossible, as we explained in a piece published earlier today.
The saga is a timely reminder that delivering new housing at scale remains a politically dangerous endeavour, even in a single-party borough.
It also points to the danger of trying to implement an overarching solution to an inherently complex problem: arguably, Haringey might have found it easier to articulate the benefits and address the concerns of several smaller, more focused schemes.
The housing crisis demands bold thinking, ambition and determination. It would be a very great shame if this was lost in the HDV fall-out.
Emma Maier, editor, Inside Housing
