MOD to sell 13 sites to provide 17000 homes

Soldato
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I have a horrible feeling that the sites will be sold well below their market value, with the pace of house construction very low to keep demand high and therefore house prices high.

Rather than construction tenders, where the government can stipulate the construction rate in the contracts and then directly fix the price of this housing boost for both rental and private ownership.

I really hope I'm wrong, big sites like these are going to be few and far between, until we have some sort of devastation such as a world war.
 
Soldato
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It will have a proportion of social and affordable housing. Probably sheltered and elderly as well.

Some local rich developer wants to build 200 homes on a greenfield site. Application was turned down due to no affordable homes being included. After appeal it was overturned. I bet the councillors all got back handers.
 
Soldato
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They sold off part of a site on that list here a few years ago, a developer re-furbished the on site housing and listed the first phase of 30 houses for 165k... due to demand the next phase just 6 months later went on the market starting at 195k with the final block on at 210k, all identical 2 bed terrace. One huge payday for the developer.

225m raised from land expected to be developed into 17k houses works out at just over £13k a house, that is a shocking undervalue of land when developers around here are paying 40-80k per house just for the land.
 
Soldato
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They will because of local and national planning policy. They won't get away with just building a load of private homes.

Sadly this is not an assurance. There is more than one way to ensure the rich get round the "rules". As other posters above/below are attesting to.

Locally the council sold an area of land to St Modwen 10+years ago valued iirc at well over £30m. St Modwen got it for about £9m. A work colleague who lives Cheshire way also had an injunction overturned on the quiet and first they knew was when the diggers were there. Homes are built now.
 
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There was a programme about this a little while ago. Basically, almost every site the MoD sold went for less than half the market value, and very few of them were developed as affordable housing. Then came the bombshell...

One of the people in the MoD responsible for the give-away prices was also a director of the property company that the sites were sold to. Some of the sites were then developed for luxury housing raking in millions at taxpayers expense.

And as usual, the whole thing is swept under the carpet :rolleyes:.
 
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I work at one of the sites being sold as well.

Can't say it came as much of a surprise when it was announced this morning. It's been on the cards since I started there in '99.

The site's only about half full and there's been no investment in it for years.

I work at a lodger unit on camp so while I'll still have a job I don't know where it'll be based at.
 
Soldato
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There was a programme about this a little while ago. Basically, almost every site the MoD sold went for less than half the market value, and very few of them were developed as affordable housing. Then came the bombshell...

One of the people in the MoD responsible for the give-away prices was also a director of the property company that the sites were sold to. Some of the sites were then developed for luxury housing raking in millions at taxpayers expense.

And as usual, the whole thing is swept under the carpet :rolleyes:.

Was going to say I thought this had already happened. :confused:

The government said those sites would include affordable / social housing, did they heck. A lot of them haven't even been developed yet and those that have appear to be in very exclusive areas.
 
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Have just looked at the website for a development local to me which was sold off and the prices currently shown aren't exactly what I'd call affordable £399k - £600k (From!!)
 
Soldato
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Back in another thread on here, I wrote about suggesting the government buys farms for fair market value, that become economically unviable after Brexit and the loss of EU subsidiese. They then turn the farm land into affordable council homes and affordable homes to buy, reversing some of the long term bad that Maggie's "great idea" caused going forward (selling off masses of council houses). In effect creatimg new villages/towns, which would need a whole new infrastructure in some cases.

So here we are, they are not farms but very sizeable bits of land and it sounds like very underhand practices are going on.

Theresa is trying to make out she listening to the will of the majority of people who voted for Brexit, but this little gem suggests she is all talk no action. It speaks volumes to me that the article was hidden half way down the BBC homepage, this farce should have been a headliner!

In fact just a day later, I cannot find the article listed at the BBC at all, I had to google it and even then it was not on the first page...
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-37287613
 
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