I live in Poplar and the council are demolishing all the old council social housing buildings and building private housing on top. The council and their representative "Registered Social housing" organisations are in bed with the developers and are making a mint - destroying whole communities in the process. The local pubs, many of the local shops, the community centre are all private flats nowadays. All my family's old places, my mates places and people I know and have grew up with places have been destroyed.Harry Hound wrote:Saw a documentary yesterday on youtube claiming that most of the new build flats around Stratford, Canning Town and Royal Docks are being purchased off plan by foreign investors, mostly Asian investors (normal citizens, not bankers etc.) and then left empty. How is this possible without having to pay council tax and standing utility payments? As far as I'm aware the council tax is charged at the double rate when the property is empty?
What's double rate? £4k a year, maybe? They'll be expecting to see more like £40k a year in appreciation alone, I suspect. Whether or not that happens is another matter, but history suggests if you're in for the long run, there's easy money to be made...
It gets worse. The RSL have only built 30% of the new build as social housing. They have knocked down well over 1000 flats and less than 300 tenants have been given a new home. The other 700 tenants have been forced to relocate outside Poplar/LBTH.
As for leaseholders it's even worse - I know for a fact that they have had their homes Compulsory Purchased with no negotiations with view to demolition. The RSL values a 3 bed maisonette at £360!! A new 1 bed studio flat on the new build on top of where the maisonette costs £465k!! The leaseholders have been told basically "Take the money and go elsewhere" which means out of London. There is no way out of this - it's a done deal.
This is social cleansing at it's worst - and it is been all round the country - mainly by Labour run Councils. I live in LBTH where we have a Labour Council and a Labour MP and they have sanctioned all of the above. It's Corbyn's elephant in the room. At first he refused to acknowledge this was happening and now he has promised "voting for demolition" and other so called ways of halting this land grab. The problem is his words have been distanced by the PLP and by the time he got into power (if he ever does) it will be too late.
The new builds are largely sold but are clearly not occupied. My sisters went on a long distance holiday abroad late last year and came back with a BA brochure which had an advertisement for esidents of Hong Kong to come and invest in the new build properties in Poplar as " potential rental income was phenomenal." The RSL refuses to release any info on the ownership of the new build as they say they are outside the DPA. By the way the windows are filthy, the lack of curtains and furniture etc you can see no one lives there.
Oh and "poor doors" too. Leaseholders can come in via the electronic entry system via the front doors. Tenants have a back entrance they are restricted too. Actually some of the blocks are purposely designed to keep tenants physically segregated from the leaseholders
I urge anyone interested in this subject to watch Dispossession by Paul Sng. It shows what is going on up and down the country from East London to Glasgow, from Newcastle to Manchester.