Birmingham uses council land to raise £4.7m from HCA
Birmingham City Council has won Homes and Communities Agency funding for 234 new homes by handing over seven council-owned sites across the city.
The council is using land worth £8.1m to secure an investment of up to £4.7m for housing under the HCA’s Public Land Initiative.
The new homes will be delivered in Sheldon, Bartley Green, Handsworth, Longbridge and Tyburn.
Around two-thirds of the homes will be for outright sale, with the remaining 83 being provided for Birmingham City Council itself.
The developers of the homes for sale are incentivised by a profit sharing arrangement, with some funds being re-cycled to help other schemes get started in the future. In return for using its own land, the council gets back homes for rent to add to its housing stock.
Councillor John Lines, cabinet member for housing, said: “This scheme is another way that we have supported the private sector to start building again, and we have not borrowed a penny to do it.
“I’m delighted that by working together with private developers and the HCA, we have got our people the best deal-hundreds of more family homes.
“I’m pleased we’ve secured the funding so we can get back to building more homes for our people. This announcement proves that once again the government trusts us to get the job done.”
Paul Spooner, HCA director for the West Midlands said: “This investment marks an important stage for new housing in Birmingham. It brings together local authority land, HCA investment and private sector development through our delivery partner panel.”
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This story is astonishing.
It appears quite clearly that the Conservative controlled Birmingham City Council is willing to squander local Council Taxpayers by handing over seven sites of COUNCIL OWNED LAND worth several million pounds over to Private Housing Development for what? In return for 83 Council owned Units… just 1/3rd of the total to be built.
This is BLOODY PITIFUL and some may conclude theft of Taxpayer owned assets.
It is not acceptable to have less than HALF of THE UNITS to be built allocated for SOCIAL/ COUNCIL OWNERSHIP.
Sure enough, with the scheme as currently constituted with 2/3rds of the new homes to be built being for Sale on the Open Market, the City Council will make a Profit and plough it back into supporting more New Housing. How much of the latter though will be for Social Rent and Council/ Housing Association Owned?? I would wager very, very little indeed, if at all.
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