My latest Trews Report is on a situation at West Hendon in the London Borough of Barnet that is so scandalous it is difficult to comprehend. There appears to be a confiscation of public assets that are then gifted to private companies on such a scale that it felt like the train I’d taken from Farringdon had transported me to Pinochet’s Chile rather than North-west London.
The Council estate on the edge of the Welsh Harp Reservoir is being demolished to make way for a series of private apartment blocks currently being punted to investors as buy-to-let opportunities. The Council residents are being shunted off to a purpose built block away from the Waterside to the carpark. Leaseholders who purchased their homes under Right-To-Buy are being given less than half their value and offered a 50% stake in one of the new homes. And non-secure tenants are either being moved to another regeneration estate or discharged into the private sector. The SSSI rating of the Reservoir is being removed to allow for more construction around the lakeside.
It is a theft of public assets on an epic scale that would even make Berlusconi blush.
There is clearly something rotten in the Borough of Barnet – where the Mayor is a private landlord who receives large amounts of housing benefit from his own authority
Where at least half the councilors are private landlords.
Where the Tory Councillor responsible for housing, Tom Davey, refers to “benefit claiming scum”
