Greenwich Council reveal housing plans in Kidbrooke
A consultation is underway for new council homes in Kidbrooke at a site opposite Aldi and near Kidbrooke station.
The scheme consists of:
- 117 new homes across four buildings set amidst a new landscape.
- A nursery within one of the buildings for both new residents and local Kidbrooke residents.
These plans are, for me at least, a welcome step away from very low density homes previously seen in many Greenwich council proposals and now provides a sizeable number of housing to alleviate an ever growing housing list and lower costs to taxpayers through housing people in private lettings at vast cost.
The main tower block is pretty uninspiring. I wouldn’t mind it being taller and slimmer with more elegant massing. The rest of the plan though is impressive and a step beyond the mundane so often seen.
I’m sure many NIMBY’s will complain, yet they are usually lucky enough to know where they’ll be living in six months. That’s not something afforded to ever more people as they are shunted from short term private letting to short term private letting, disrupting work, school and social lives.
The impact of that on children, families, wider communities and taxpayers can barely be understated. It’s costing us all vast sums with private landlords the only beneficiary.
A third of right to buy homes that were sold are now private buy to let at up to three times the monthly rent cost of a social home. That’s too expensive for many – even on decent wages – and at a national levels housing benefit payments to private landlords tops £8 billion a year. At a local level Greenwich Council are having to regularly top up budgets by millions. The last was £2.9 million a few months ago:
Remember that’s on top of annually budgeted amounts which far exceed £2.9 million.
With ever fewer plots in council possession maximises what is there is key. Many previous proposals badly wasted land – including four small houses at a decent plot in Plumstead.
This proposal is far better in terms of scale.
Click here to view plans in the consultation.
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Its a shame this has been plonked in front of us like this…there is little to change at this point. Surely would have been much more constructive to develop some sort of co-design process considering this is a HUGE development for Greenwich to embark on.
I give this new proposed development the thumbs up 👍, I am really pleased to see twelve flats will be wheelchair accessible for tenats with mobility isssues. The nursery on site will benefit both resdents of the new development and the local Kidbrooke area.
We do need more homes that are social housing at affordable rents.
I hope the new store next to Aldi will also be occupied soon, I thought B&M were going to open a new store here but when I enquired about this they declined to answer. So do not know if it is just delayed due to Covid-19 or they have pulled out.
Much better way to spend council’s funds on scheme like this rather than buying a few private properties on the open market
I totally agree VK and lookat the money wasted by Greenwich Council on that scheme buying one house at market value rather than using the money to building a small block of flats and housing 6 to 8 familes for example.
I fully welcome and support this development and it will provide families with social housing at affordable rents.
I agree we need social housing as rents in private landlords properties are far to high. But what i would like to see are plans for a hospital or two in the borough, when look at the total amount of building high rise apartments in the borough Queen Elizabeth hospital will never be able to cope
I agree Steven Norris you are right the Queen Elizabeth Hospital will never cope with the demand of the growing local population.
The Greenwich District Hospital should never had been closed in 2001,
I and I know many others have been saying for a long time now we need more amenities in the Borough like GP Surgeries, Hospitals etc along with an imporoved transport infrastructure. Thouands of new homes are still under construction or in the planning stage so the Boroughs population is set to grow even more over the next few years,
The reasons why GPs and Hospitals can’t cope, isn’t due to a lack of space, its more to do with lack of funds to keep spaces active for increased demand, but more importantly lack of staff. It takes 4-6 odd years to train medical staff subject to post. So to meet today’s demand levels would have required correct investments and decisions by gov. around 7 years ago. That never happened and so services are constrained.
Having a 10 storey block of flats opposite semi-detached houses in unacceptable. Unfortunately this continuous desire to build high is ruining the character of the local neighbourhood.