| |
'DAME SHIRLEY HOMES SWITCH
Council is accused of ‘old habits’ as social housing is moved
WESTMINSTER Council has been accused of using Shirley Porter-style gerry-mandering tactics after another housing scandal erupted in City Hall.
Labour councillors claim housing chiefs have fallen back into “old habits” after a secret plan to shift a major social housing scheme out of Conservative-controlled Hyde Park ward and into Labour-held Church Street ward was revealed.
Hundreds of affordable and luxury homes were promised as part of a £100million redevelopment of the North Wharf Road site in Paddington Basin. But the council wants to create as many luxury homes as possible in the development and use the massive cash pot to build more estates across the ward border.
Leader of the Labour group, Councillor Paul Dimoldenberg, said: “I can only think that the Conservatives are back to your old gerry-mandering habits of piling all the social housing into Labour wards and keeping Tory wards as free of social housing to safeguard majorities.
“This cannot be in the interests of the existing Church Street population or any new residents. I demand that the council is run in the interests of all residents and not simply in the electoral interests of the Conservative Party.
“This will further reinforce Church Street as a massive social housing area, together with all the attendant socio-economic issues, and ?will further strain the already overworked social infrastructure of schools, health facilities, policing and facilities for the young and old.”
Former Westminster Council leader Shirley Porter was investigated following her decision in July 1987 to sell thousands of homes in marginal wards to prospective Conservative voters under a policy called “building stable communities”.
District Auditor John Magill later accused the Tesco heiress of “disgraceful and improper gerrymandering” in one of the biggest scandals to rock local politics.
The council says that as part of its Community Build scheme, 70 per cent of the development will be luxury homes. They hope to override the London Mayor’s planning guidelines – requiring 50 per cent of all new housing developments to be affordable – by using the extra money to squeeze more housing on to council estates in Edgware Road and Church Street.
Director of Housing Rosemary Westbrook said: “This will allow us to kick-start a whole new regeneration scheme for Church Street – one of our poorest wards.
“This will be a mixed community with better quality social housing.”
The site in North Wharf Road became vacant when North Westminster Community School was closed by Ofsted inspectors in 2006.
|
 |
|
| |
| |
