Islington Council has recently taken several steps to promote the creation of more affordable housing in the Borough and to re-affirm the importance of satisfying planning policies. There have been two landmark cases that have shown the commitment of the local authority to creating the homes that Londoners need.

The first of these was the opposition to a development on Parkhurst Road that had no affordable housing. The Council has a planning policy that states 50% of the homes on each development should be affordable (70% of these should be for social rent). The developer tried to push through a proposal for the site, claiming that the cost of the land made meeting the policy impossible. The Council argued that overpaying for the land was not an acceptable reason to fail to meet the requirements.

The second case saw Islington Council stand firm on their observance of the planning policy in regards to the development of the 10 acre Holloway Prison site. Offices hope that if 600 homes are created on the land for example, 210 of them would be for social rent and an additional 90 marked as affordable. This would satisfy the policy.

During the initial consultation for the site hundreds of local people responded. The overwhelming belief is that the site should be used to create housing to meet the needs of Londoners rather than focusing on creating more landmark high value homes that aren’t accessible to everybody. A second consultation will run from July to September to give people even more opportunities to express their wishes for the site.

At Finefair we think it is great that local councils are doing more to see a variety of properties built to suit different price tags. This will help to meet every need, catering for people with different budgets as well as investors. We are the most experienced provider of council leasing Islington has, offering support for clients and helping to make properties available to the local authority.

If you have any questions for us about council leasing please get in touch.