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Brick by Brick close to selling off Coulsdon flats at half-price

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CROYDON IN CRISIS: The borough’s residents could be short-changed again as the council’s housing developer bails out by selling Lion Green Road flats on the cheap. EXCLUSIVE by STEVEN DOWNES

One of the country’s biggest housing associations is in talks with Brick by Brick to buy 157 flats that the council-funded housing developer has built in Coulsdon, in a deal that could have been worth close to £40million.

Notting Hill Genesis has confirmed to Inside Croydon that they have submitted an offer to buy the five BxB blocks on Lion Green Road.

The sale has yet to go through, though, as negotiations continue over the price to be paid. Notting Hill Genesis are thought to be seeking to buy the flats for as little as £20million – less than half of what the new-builds could have realised in sales over the last 12 months.

The housing association is cash-rich, having a £87million surplus in its latest six-monthly report. They also hold all the cards in their Coulsdon negotiation, with Brick by Brick effectively running a fire-sale of its assets to pay off some of the £200million in loans that they received from the cash-strapped council between 2016 and 2020.

‘Verdant’ and ‘pavilions’: the five blocks laid out on what used to be a council car park

With the property market about to nose-dive in 2023, NHG also know that finding buyers for Brick by Brick properties won’t be getting any easier any time soon. With Croydon Council having recently declared itself effectively bankrupt for a third time in two years, BxB needs to consider any offer very seriously.

The marketing bullshit that was routinely spewed out in the days when Brick by Brick and its spendthrift managing director, Colm Lacey, were still pretending that all was just hunky dory with their project remains on the company’s website today. Lacey’s BxB wanted to call the Coulsdon flats built on an old car park “Red Clover Gardens”.

“Red Clover Gardens is on Lion Green Road in the heart of Coulsdon. Designed by Mary Duggan, the scheme consists of five sculpted pavilions set within a verdant landscape.” “Sculpted” pavilions. Hmmm. And a “verdant landscape”. Oooo.

“Primarily residential, Red Clover Gardens includes 157 one-, two- and three-bedroom apartments, of which are [sic] 78 will be available to buy on-the-open market, and 46 through shared ownership. There will also be 33 offered at affordable rent.”

Stalled: construction work at Lion Green Lane was completed at least a year ago

Based on current market values in this part of south London, if Brick by Brick had managed to sell just the 78 flats intended, they should have been looking for more than £20million in sales receipts.

The shared ownership homes might have presented a slight problem to Brick by Brick, because Lacey forgot to get the company licensed to conduct shared ownership sales. But those 46 units probably represent another £12million-plus of unrealised value for Croydon residents.

Magician: BxB MD Colm Lacey made £200m ‘disappear’

It was profits from the sale of homes which, Lacey and his supporters, such as Labour councillors Alison Butler and Paul Scott, always promised would pay for the provision of new council homes – where social rent levels are usually less than the “affordable rents” being suggested here.

Of course, all those promises were broken, with Brick by Brick never paying a penny back in the loans and interest it had been handed by Butler and Scott. Instead, the council resorted to a suspicious-looking “circular” purchase arrangement on other BxB properties, using Housing Revenue Account money to buy flats that the council had effectively already paid for.

The council-owned Lion Green Road site was granted planning permission for the 157 flats by the local planning authority – Croydon Council – in July 2018. The site was sold by Croydon Council to Brick by Brick in January 2019 for £1.5million – probably less than 25per cent of its true value with planning permission – so another loss to the Council Tax-payers of Croydon.

According to Brick by Brick, the architects they were using at Red Clover Gardens were called Ruff.

“The dynamic shape and arrangement of the buildings, set amongst a canopy of trees, makes good use of this spacious setting. The living and kitchen spaces are generously proportioned with dual aspect, giving residents will always have a sense of connection with the landscape from within their home. The scheme was celebrated at an RIBA exhibition at the V&A Museum in 2018.”

That last piece of vanity demonstrates quite how glacially slow Brick by Brick’s development process has been – with all the extra time costing the company, and therefore Croydon Council Tax-payers, more money.

Five years on from that V&A Museum exhibit, locals suggest that the construction on Lion Green Lane was near-completed more than a year ago, but “it’s hardly been a hive of activity for months”.

Only in the last few weeks have the wooden hoardings around the site been removed, replaced by temporary mesh fencing. Half-hearted efforts at landscaping (“verdant landscape” remember?) have been undertaken. But otherwise, little money is being spent on the site as Brick by Brick winds down its operations, prior to handing it over to new owners.

The fate of the five blocks of flats is as yet uncertain: some suggest that Notting Hill Genesis might opt to use two for shared ownership, one for social tenants and put flats in the other two blocks on the private market – which might be expected to meet all of their costs on the deal.

Today, a spokesperson for the housing association told Inside Croydon, “Notting Hill Genesis have submitted an offer for the Lion Green Road development. As a high-quality residential development in a great neighbourhood, we would be very interested in agreeing terms with Brick by Brick for the purchase of the homes in the new year.”

The Mayor of Croydon, Jason Perry, should make the eventual agreed sale price for the Lion Green Lane flats public some time in the next 12 months – there’s nothing to stop him from doing so once the sale has been agreed. Only then will more accurate calculations of the losses to the council – and Croydon residents – be possible.

Read more: BxB’s collapse was predictable. Why did no one else notice?
Read more: Brick by Brick CEO says company has sold 6 houses. Or is it 5?
Read more: Brick by Brick faces ‘disaster’ as it misses sales targets by 83%
Read more: Building towards the council’s financial ruin, Brick by Brick


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