Site icon Inside Croydon

Oversupply of flats in borough is due to ‘profit over need’

insidecroydon

CROYDON IN CRISIS: Official government data shows that the council’s build-at-all-cost approach that has blighted parts of the borough has created a glut of over-priced ‘executive apartments’.
EXCLUSIVE by STEVEN DOWNES

Builders’ subsidy: an industry insider has suggested ‘market manipulation’ has occurred in areas where housing delivery has exceeded targets

The proliferation of block after block of expensive flats across Croydon’s suburbs – under the policies imposed by former Labour planning chief Paul Scott and the council’s current director of planning, Heather Cheesbrough and her old boss Jo “Negreedy” Negrini – are the result of “market manipulation”, where housing delivery has been “decided by profitability over need” which has left parts of the borough “oversaturated by new homes”.

That’s according to the chief exec of a property business comparison site, GetAgent.co.uk, which has conducted research that shows the nation’s housing delivery is out of kilter when it comes to the level of homes required in any given area.

GetAgent analysed government data from the Housing Delivery Test 2021, an annual measurement that highlights the need for housing in a given area. GetAgent then looked at how many additional dwellings have actually been delivered.

The housing policies pursued by Scott, Negrini and Cheesbrough has seen parts of public parks sold off for housing, kids’ playgrounds built over, nature reserves threatened and public open space annexed for use by the council’s own development company.

In Croydon, the housing target for the years between 2018 and 2021 was 4,249.

But according to official data, 5,420 new homes were built – 1,171 more than required, a delivery rate of 127.6per cent.

Other London boroughs, where housing demand is high and developers have been keen to maximise their profits, also reported high numbers of homes delivered.

For Greater London as a whole, the data shows a marginal overdelivery of 103per cent, with 3,644 homes delivered above the 113,900 target.

Yet just across the county border, in Surrey, two neighbouring local authorities had some of the worst delivery figures for the whole country.

Epsom and Ewell saw just 519 of the 1,490 homes they were expected to deliver in the three-year period, a rate of 35per cent.

Tandridge District Council – an authority where more than 95per cent of their land has Green Belt planning protections – did little better, at 38per cent, with just 634 new homes against a target of 1,672.

Across the country, the research shows that the level of additional dwellings delivered has exceeded the forecasted requirement.

But while this topline paints a picture of success, GetAgent’s analysis at a more granular level reveals a market that is significantly out of balance.

For example, since 2018-2019 in Oxford, the government forecast a need for 88 additional dwellings. However, some 1,879 additional net dwellings were delivered – a 2,126per cent rate of oversupply. Other areas, mostly outside London and the south-east, also created oversaturated markets.

In the main, it was in mostly Tory-controlled areas in the home counties – Southend, Eastbourne, Epping Forest and Epsom among them – where the number of homes delivered was barely around one-third of what was forecast.

Colby Short, the CEO of GetAgent.co.uk, said, “The nation has been in the grip of a housing crisis for many years now and this grip is only getting tighter, as house prices continue to climb to record highs, while the rate of new homes being delivered remains insufficient.”

Short said that the government had failed to address the housing crisis. “It’s abundantly clear that the delivery of additional homes from one area to the next is dangerously out of kilter. This is, no doubt, largely down to market manipulation from those who stand to profit from the creation of these additional dwellings.

“By allowing housing delivery to be decided by profitability over need, some areas of the property market have been oversaturated by the delivery of new homes, while others remain very much left out in the cold.”

Become a Patron!


Exit mobile version