Westminster City Council Spends Over £20 Million On 45 Flats Sold Under Right To Buy.

The average cost of the 45 former Council flats bought back by the Council is £419,000 with a further average cost of £36,000 in refurbishing the flats, giving a total cost of £20,445,000 – an average of £454,000 per flat. Labour Councillors say that many of the 45 flats sold by the Council would have been originally sold to their former Council tenant owners for less than £100,000 when taking in to account the discounts available under the Right to Buy. This latest news comes days after Westminster City Council revealed that it had bought 25 properties in Gray’s, Essex for over £3.6 million as temporary accommodation for homeless families.  Read more on the labourwestminster website.

Borough Accused of 'Exporting' Its Housing Crisis

Westminster Conservatives have housed over 800 Westminster families to temporary accommodation in east and north east London as the capital’s housing crisis deepens.  Overall, Westminster Council has 2,382 families in temporary accommodation with 52% living in Westminster. However, 825 families (34%) have been moved out to cheaper properties in north and east London, with Newham (267), Enfield (87), Barking & Dagenham (85), Waltham Forest (75), Redbridge (72), Haringey (71) and Hackney (67) taking most of Westminster’s homeless families. In addition, 44 families have been housed in Thurrock and 14 in Southend. Read more on the labourwestminster blog.

40 Per Cent of New Build Homes in Westminster Sold To Buy-To-Let Investors

Last year saw 40 per cent of new build homes in Westminster sold to buy-to-let investors, while 52 per cent went the way of buy-to-let investors in Kensington and Chelsea, according to research by specialist fund and asset managers London Central Portfolio. Last year in London 46 per cent of all new build accommodation built was bought up by the buy-to-let market. Read more on the labourwestminster website.