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COMMENT: Fat Cat Property Developers Cream-off Labour's Empty Properties
September 6, 2009 5:17 PM
Liberal Democrat Councillors have totally condemned Labour-run Lambeth for acting as a supplier to feed fat-cat property developers in dubious get-rich-quick deals on empty properties that could easily house some of the 17,000 people currently languishing on its housing waiting list.
London Evening Standard reporter Katherine Barney ran a major story in the 4th September edition which showed how a Streatham Hill property was sold by the Council at Auction in February 09 for a paltry £128,000 and has now gone on the market six months later for £215,000 netting someone a handsome potential profit of £87,000.
The Evening Standard article even suggested that the desirable property was bought by a consortium that specifically targets auctions. A spokesperson for the consortium stated gleefully, " I realized pretty quickly that this was a bargain."
Jeremy Clyne, Lib Dem housing spokesperson and a Streatham Hill ward councillor, actually took the trouble to view the empty property in Cricklade Avenue before it was sold at auction. Cllr Clyne said, "We took a look at this and other flats before Lambeth auctioned them off, and Cricklade Avenue needed very little work."
The local estate agent currently advertises the family flat as a "charming period flat on a desirable street close to the amenities of Streatham Hill and Tulse Hill and Streatham Hill Stations." A spokesman for the firm even suggested that the Council had sold the property too cheaply at auction.
Something is very, very wrong with Labour-run Lambeth's chaotic and frankly immoral stance of selling-off a perfectly useable - even desirable - two-bedroom maisonette in a leafy suburban avenue.
Someone living in squalid and over-crowded conditions and way down the pile on the waiting list would literally kill for the chance of a lifetime to get their family into such a property.
Instead Labour prefers to line the pockets of those who, perhaps, represent the unacceptable face of the property market.