Residents Perplexed as 'Beautiful' Houses Remain Unoccupied
Most of affordable development in Grove Park still empty after six months
The houses on Loraine Road. Picture: Tom Lindsay
Residents of the Grove Park area have expressed surprised that a row of ‘beautiful’ affordable houses in their area have remained unoccupied for so long.
The twenty-two and three Victorian houses on Loraine Road, which runs parallel to Strand on the Green, were refurbished by Hounslow Council with the work apparently finished at the end of last year. There are twenty homes 14 of which are available at social rents and 6 on a shared ownership basis.
Tom Lindsay says he that he has observed the properties as he walks his children to school two or three times a week and was perplexed that nobody was moving in. He added, ”I find it incredibly frustrating and sad that we have a social housing crisis currently, yet these wonderful houses have been sitting empty for months and months.”
He wrote to the council earlier this year and was told that the delay in families being moved into the homes was due to the properties not being handed over to the council by the contractor by the end of March and there had been issues with connecting them to utilities. However, three months later Mr Lindsay reported that there was still no sign of occupation or of any work being undertaken at the site with the ‘beautiful’ houses appearing ready for people to move in to.
The council told Mr Lindsay that its lettings team has been matching the properties to prospective tenants on its housing waiting list in accordance with its allocations policy and the first tenants were due to move in.
When we asked Hounslow Council for comment, a spokesperson told us that seven of the social rent properties were now occupied with the other seven of these houses already allocated to new tenants. Applications for the six shared ownership properties are currently being processed. These three-bedroom houses are being offered in partnership with Milestone and are available for eligible households living or working within the borough. Shared ownership allows you to purchase part of a home, while paying a reduced level of affordable rent on the rest of the property that’s owned by a social landlord.
Work on the houses was finished at the end of last year. Picture: Tom Lindsay
Councillor Sue Sampson, Cabinet Member for Housing Management and Homelessness, said, “Like many other London boroughs, Hounslow is facing an acute housing shortage. We are committed to building more homes for residents and Lorraine Road illustrates our steadfast commitment to increase affordable housing. The homes in this development were completed and ready for occupation in May.”
Like Reading Articles Like This? Help Us Produce More This site remains committed to providing local community news and public interest journalism. Articles such as the one above are integral to what we do. We aim to feature as much as possible on local societies, charities based in the area, fundraising efforts by residents, community-based initiatives and even helping people find missing pets. We’ve always done that and won’t be changing, in fact we’d like to do more. However, the readership that these stories generates is often below that needed to cover the cost of producing them. Our financial resources are limited and the local media environment is intensely competitive so there is a constraint on what we can do. We are therefore asking our readers to consider offering financial support to these efforts. Any money given will help support community and public interest news and the expansion of our coverage in this area. A suggested monthly payment is £8 but we would be grateful for any amount for instance if you think this site offers the equivalent value of a subscription to a daily printed newspaper you may wish to consider £20 per month. If neither of these amounts is suitable for you then contact info@neighbournet.com and we can set up an alternative. All payments are made through a secure web site. One-off donations are also appreciated. Choose The Amount You Wish To Contribute. If you do support us in this way we’d be interested to hear what kind of articles you would like to see more of on the site – send your suggestions to the editor. For businesses we offer the chance to be a corporate sponsor of community content on the site. For £30 plus VAT per month you will be the designated sponsor of at least one article a month with your logo appearing if supplied. If there is a specific community group or initiative you’d like to support we can make sure your sponsorship is featured on related content for a one off payment of £50 plus VAT. All payments are made through a secure web site. |
July 24, 2022
