Greenwich Council tenants are set to move into the Royal Arsenal development in Woolwich, with senior councillors poised to approve the purchase of 90 flats from Berkeley Homes.
The Labour-run council had pledged to build 1,750 new homes, but it scaled down that ambition in March, entering into deals with private developers to boost its housing stock alongside building its own number of homes.
Greenwich has faced a number of problems in building its own homes – particularly the use of modular technology – and it decided that buying in bulk from private developers would be better value for money.
Next week the council’s cabinet will be asked to approve a plan to buy 90 homes on the Arsenal, 66 in Kidbrooke Village, another Berkeley development, and 97 in Greenwich Millennium Village, which is being built by Taylor Wimpey.
All 90 homes of the Arsenal would have been sold on the private market, along with 25 of the homes in Kidbrooke. The remaining 41 homes at Kidbrooke, along with all the Greenwich Millennium Village homes, would otherwise have been handed to a housing association.
A total of 81 of the Arsenal flats and 58 in Kidbrooke will be two or three-bedroom flats, while 71 of the GMV flats will be of two to four bedrooms.
This is the first time Greenwich has proposed a deal with Berkeley, and would mark a return of council housing to the site of the old Ferrier Estate, which was demolished more than a decade ago.
Greenwich has previously bought into GMV – buying the under-construction Block 403 on Bugsby’s Way, and the 10-storey Hearn House, with a view over Southern Park, where tenants have already moved in.
Tenants moving into the council’s latest purchase will have less of a view, though – they will be in Block 503, on the corner of Bugsby’s Way and Peartree Way, facing the entrance to a waste disposal yard.
Public documents for next Wednesday’s meeting do not indicate where in the Berkeley developments the new homes would go, although last week the council’s planning board signed off final details for soon-to-be-built blocks at the Ropeyards, on the site of the temporary Maribor Park in the Royal Arsenal, and to the south of Kidbrooke Village. All the buildings are due to be ready between 2028 and 2031.
“The new council homes that will be built on the sites contained within this report will enhance the lives of residents and improve their safety, comfort and security through the provision of new homes,” a report to councillors says.
In contrast with past decisions to buy properties for housing, costs have not been made public – although the council would have to work within a £397 million budget set in 2022 for the delivery of 1,000 council homes.
According to the most recent figures, Greenwich has 28,157 households on its waiting list, including 5,020 in priority categories.
However, in a separate decision due to be made at the same meeting, plans to build 51 council homes behind the Woolwich Waves leisure centre are set to be scrapped.
The cabinet will make its decision at a meeting next Wednesday.
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