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Low-cost London living
High property prices and living costs have severely limited access to home ownership and these problems are particularly acute in London.
The provision of good quality affordable homes has failed to keep up with demand, meaning that essential key workers such as teachers and nurses find themselves priced out of the capital.
The London-Wide Initiative (LWI) was established in 2003 to make affordable homes available to key workers. LWI helps key workers by giving them the opportunity to buy a new property for a discount of up to 50 per cent of the full purchase price.
Under the Initiative, English Partnerships shares the costs and benefits of home ownership with the purchaser. The purchaser has 100 per cent ownership and title to their brand new home but will share any increase in value with English Partnerships when they choose to sell.
We acquired a range of 15 development sites across inner and greater London to deliver mixed-tenure communities in collaboration with the Housing Corporation, the Greater London Authority and the Department for Communities and Local Government. Three development partners were selected to work on LWI schemes – First Base, Key London Alliance and a consortium led by Countryside Properties plc. This partnership between the public and private sectors has created a new way of delivering homes by utilising land value to generate additional affordable properties.
The success of LWI was very much in evidence upon completion of the first development at Adelaide Wharf in Hackney, East London. Built around a substantial landscaped garden, the development includes 74 key worker and affordable homes, 73 private homes and 700 sq m of affordable workspace. All of the key worker properties were reserved within three hours of going on sale and the first residents moved in during November.
All of the homes have large balconies, timber flooring, granite worktops and quality kitchen and bathroom suites. Other features include a centralised heating plant, harvested rain water systems and ecological roofs/gardens.
Planning permission was granted for two LWI schemes at Elephant and Castle during August and September 2007. Planning applications are also currently being considered by local planning authorities for sites at Barking, East Greenwich, Lewisham, Islington and in Tower Hamlets. Three schemes are under construction in Croydon, Central London and Wandsworth.
Overall, LWI will deliver up to 5,000 homes with around 1,500 set aside
for key workers.
© English Partnerships 2003-2008