Greenwich council homes near completion – but is this it?

A development of new council housing in east Greenwich is almost complete as part of the wider 1,750 Greenwich Builds programme.

In total 32 homes will be located on the former site of Sam Manners house – though this could spell the end of a short-lived resurgence in new council homes.

Modular construction methods have been used in Greenwich and many companies in that sector have folded – included one supplying the council site.

The fall of Modpod pushed up costs and problems with modular building has hit other sites in Greenwich alongside those in Lewisham borough and beyond.

More widely private developers such as Berkeley have put the brakes on their own modular factory and changed building methods in Kidbrooke back to traditional methods at latest phases.

The end of council housebuilding again

While private developers have switched back to more traditional building methods councils such as Greenwich appear on course to pull the plug on building new housing outright.

That’s despite a severe housing problem with 2,000 households no in temporary housing and skyrocketing costs to the authority. It could also see skills and knowledge built up internally after many years of not building becoming lost once again.

It appears to align with the new Labour government’s failure to support council building since taking power, instead relying on working with the private sector. The last Labour government also opposed new council housebuilding with total numbers built almost non-existent over 13 years of Tony Blair and Gordon Brown.

We could now well see built numbers of council homes fall back as the same ideology towards direct public sector building takes hold. Once again we’d see a Tory government oversee more new council homes – albeit still at low levels – than a subsequent Labour government. Some in Labour seem in denial about this but the stats on council housebuilding don’t lie.

In place of direct building Greenwich Council now seek to work alongside private developers. This isn’t terrible if the council can procure homes built via Section 106 agreements for less than market rates which Housing Associations are unable to secure.

Though given the sheer scale of the housing shortage – and ensuing costs both for those renting and the taxpayer (Greenwich are paying high sums for hotels and B&Bs to give a local example), building new homes alongside procuring S106 homes is required,. It shouldn’t be an either/or situation.

But that would require central government to increase funding accruing short term costs for long term savings – which isn’t how the Treasury operates. There’s little real sign of change in funding from Labour since taking power apart from some – so far – tokenistic sums which barely keep up with inflation.

Very slow progress

There’s also the danger that more public-private partnerships will occur which move extremely slowly – and we’ve seen many examples of that. In Lewisham you only need look at Besson Street.

After 16 years and counting not a single brick has been laid. See also many, many partnerships between the Greater London Authority and private developers. Just yesterday a development of 5,000 homes at Thameside West in Silvertown was covered on this site.

That GLA/Keystone project was supposed to start in 2020. Nothing has yet begun five years later and nothing appears likely to anytime soon. See also Silvertown Quays nearby proposals for 6,000+ homes has gone nowhere for 20 years until recently.

State pays, taxpayer loses

In Greenwich look at the peninsula where government agency English Partnership spent £225 million clearing land for private developers to then build at a snail’s pace for 25 years and counting.

One example being Greenwich Millennium Village which is GLA land with Countryside Homes and Taylor Wimpey in charge of building including a sprinkling of social homes on site.

At current rates of progress it’ll take 30 years to build out the full 3,000 homes. That same number of homes was built in around 5-10 years post-war at certain sites in the capital when the London County Council took a far stronger role including direct building.

So make the most of the new council homes as it looks like this could be the end – and once again hoping that working with the private sector succeeds. It was a huge failure in many instances in recent decades and the legacy of that remains with us – and is costing vast sums to this day.