London fire victims rehousing
 

Interesting discussion on LBC today. Long story short, Kensington council has been able to acquire luxury flats at cost, and will rehouse some of the unfortunate families who survived that awful tower block fire. Most of the residents were relying on social housing of some sort, and will continue to rely on social housing in the new luxury blocks.

However, some of the residents of the luxury blocks are not that pleased. They pay service charge of £16K p.a. to use high spec facilities (pool, gym, cinema) and it was being debated whether the new residents should have access to these facilities (given their huge misfortune) or be subject to the standard "poor door" protocol in other mixed use flats.

Not sure what is right in this case, can see both sides of the argument...

Re: London fire victims rehousing
 

I feel like the answer is pretty obvious to me..

Re: London fire victims rehousing
 

Surely, if some of those that are paying the full rate aren't happy, they can leave a relocate to another such property, can't they?

Re: London fire victims rehousing
 

Not if their flat is now worth less than they paid for it.

Re: London fire victims rehousing
 

I thought we were talking about tenants. Those that were paying full rent, and those that were paying subsidized rent.

Re: London fire victims rehousing
 

I believe many of the other residents bought their flats and pay £16k per year lease fees.

Re: London fire victims rehousing
 

I am afraid this situation is not new (in London anyway), only a year or two back I saw a documentary wherein Social Housing candidates turned down offers of accommodation in developments where others had paid £400K +, because the dwelling, etc wasn't good enough.

Re: London fire victims rehousing
 

So there's an assumption that these less well off people being residents will lower property prices? It probably will. I worked with someone who got £££ from her solicitor as rage search failed to show that some flats would be owned by a housing association.

Plus some existing residents don't want to share their swanky facilities with poor people. How wretched. It's probably bad enough that they have to walk the same streets and know they'll have to share an elevator.

Re: London fire victims rehousing
 

That is correct. Some flats were £2 million. Just what I heard on the radio, haven't read up on it.

Re: London fire victims rehousing
 

That seemed to be the majority view on the radio (phone in). Not because they were poor, but because they were victims. If it were merely poor, there's a reasonable argument for separation, but the unique circumstances of this fire make the argument less clear cut.

The issue was more on use of special facilities than property values.

Re: London fire victims rehousing
 

Ach, they're poor so they will be lardarses and won't be in the gym and pool. But the media room will be full of Waynettas and their sprogs.

Re: London fire victims rehousing
 

I read that a proportion of the flats were already earmarked for social housing anyway, as they often are nowadays (either the developer 'donates' a % of flats for social housing or puts a % of money into a fund to build some somewhere else). The residents would have been aware of this (or should have been informed) when they purchased.

The City of London Corporation (who are very well off) bought them and passed them on to Kensington - they bought about 4 extra than the original agreement apparently.

Re: London fire victims rehousing
 

Once again we have half a story from the media. Headline: https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/...rtment-complex Grenfell Tower families to be rehoused in flats at luxury complex.

The story so far:
A fire in a multi story building clad in inflammable material kills tens and makes hundreds homeless. The council and social services react with a less than acceptable efficiency and this reflects badly on all especially a government already accused of heartlessness following a botched election. The opposition call on government to take over empty apartments and the besieged government reacts by doing just that... however... this is a political expediant made by someone just wanting something, anything, to go away.

But.. one reason brexit was successful was the age old argument made by Joe Bloggs in the pub... "They come over 'ere, go to the front of the queue, get the best houses when me daughter and 'er kid don't get a look in. It ain't fair."

The argument's moved on.. "They come over 'ere and look what they give 'em, luxury flats with swimming pools and stuff. It makes yer blood boil and me daughter's still staying wiv us in the box room and we got an outside bog. Ooh's that UKIP bloke? Invite 'im for dinner!"

The issue is the perception that this act and the way that it's reported will affect an already fractious multicultural country. It don't look good.

Re: London fire victims rehousing
 

:nod:
I'm guessing the difference is that although knowing about it there was no expectation of sharing certain facilities whereas now there's a possibility that they might.

Re: London fire victims rehousing
 

The rehoused people will NOT have access to the pool etc, according to the news, and those people getting places under the affordable housing scheme would not have access either.