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Morning Briefing: L&Q resident complains of poor conditions in London block
Letter reveals poor conditions at L&Q development, permitted development hits the headlines again, and all your other major housing new stories of the day
Morning Briefing: in a letter to the Observer, a resident of one of L&Q’s shared ownership properties complains of poor conditions #ukhousingLetter reveals poor conditions at L&Q development, permitted development hits the headlines again and all your other major housing new stories of the day in the @insidehousing morning briefingIn the news
The Observer has published a letter from a resident identified as ‘TJ’ complaining of the conditions in their shared ownership flat in London.
TJ says that residents have “had to battle to reclaim overpayments of hundreds of pounds after service charge errors and being billed for erroneous water charges”.
The resident also complained of "leaking roofs, falling roof tiles, incorrectly fitted tiles and poorly installed plumbing" ay the Harrington Court block in north London.
L&Q said that all of its new builds undergo thorough checks but it recognised it could do more to learn from past issues and has recently strengthened technical specifications and will only take homes if they are 100% complete.
Meanwhile, The Times reports that fewer British landlords are selling their properties as George Osborne’s tax reforms wear off.
According to an analysis carried out for the paper, the percentage of properties being sold by investors, compared with all homes, is at its lowest level since before 2015.
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Elsewhere, the BBC continues its coverage of developers converting offices into flats, with a report on businesses being “forced out” in Colchester.
The public broadcaster reports that 40 firms had to leave an office block after a property company decided to replace them with 90 very small flats.
Further north, Manchester Evening News has two stories about housebuilding in the region.
First, it reports that campaigners are worried about green spaces in their villages as house builder Taylor Wimpey reveals plans to build 200 homes in Rochdale.
Hundreds of complaints have been lodged with the council but the proposed site is included in the current version of the Greater Manchester Spatial Framework.
Meanwhile, the same paper has a story on Wigan Council, which has approved plans to build almost 300 homes, including some on what builder Countryside calls the “largest strategic housing site in the North West”.
The neighbourhood, which will be known as Lindley Village, will comprise 1,800 new homes, with work expected to start early next year.
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The director of the Runnymede Trust has a brief but interesting analysis on Boris Johnson’s ‘towns fund’, aimed at marginal, Leave-voting areas:
So I've looked at the 100 towns targeted for extra funding. As far as I can tell, around 24 are in the most 100 deprived areas
Unsurprisingly, lots of deprived city areas, north & south, have been left out. One consequence is that very few of the targeted areas have large BME...
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