Housing

Development news from the Hammersmith Society

April 10, 2013
hammersmith bridge

It is difficult keeping up with the mass of unregulated high-rise developments going on around the borough, so a huge thank you to the Hammersmith Society which has summarised the major ones in its latest newsletter.  The common features of overdevelopment by density and height, lack of open space or affordable housing are particularly worrying.

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Hammersmith House of Horrors

March 28, 2013
Coun HOuseled

The first of April will be no joke for anybody in Hammersmith living in social housing or relying on housing benefit. A shower of measures comes into force – the Bedroom Tax; thousands of families currently awaiting new homes will find themselves thrown off the housing register; new tenants will be subjected to draconian short-term [...]

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eNews January 2013

January 30, 2013

Jan 2013 News from Westminster and Hammersmith     By-Election In White City The Most Lucrative Traffic Camera in Britain? Police Cuts – Question the Deputy The Great FireCut of London Nash Cash Saloon Bar Debate Betting Shops Hospitals Update Planning   By-Election in White City and Wormholt The council by-election in Wormholt and White [...]

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West Ken JR – Permission Granted

October 24, 2012
West-Kensington-estate 2

The Tenants and Residents Associations on the West Ken and Gibbs Green Estate have won permission for Judicial Review of the council’s actions over the plans to knock down their homes. Coupled with the news that the Council owes HMRC around £1m because of a “Tax blunder”  and its misbehaviour over planning – both Deloitte [...]

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West Ken Masterplan – Objection

October 10, 2011

Many constituents have made their feelings on the Masterplan abundantly clear. It includes the demolition of 760 homes on the West Kensington and Gibbs Green estates. The overwhelming majority of residents do not want this scheme and have organised themselves in order to oppose it. When the matter was first raised, my constituents were told [...]

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Homelessness – we’ve got our sums wrong, Pickles tells Cameron

July 8, 2011

In a week dominated by other news, this shocking letter from local government minister Eric Pickles admits that the housing benefit cap will make 40,000 people homeless. And in an uncharacteristic moment of clarity and candour, he also points out that the policy will actually cost councils money, not produce a saving. The money councils [...]

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Social housing debate targets Housing Associations

May 9, 2011

In a six-hour debate on social housing in London, a surprising amount of criticism was leveled at Housing Associations, as Inside Housing Magazine picked up. It is possible to build decent homes that ordinary people can afford to buy or rent; the  picture above shows just such a development. Though it was put up just [...]

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Housing and planning

May 8, 2011

I spent an hour and a half being briefed by council officers on their plans for West Ken. Since I told the Planning Inspector that I was denied access to any contentious document by the council even after invoking the Freedom of information Act (FOIA) they have been love-bombing me with briefings (well, two actually, [...]

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Fun with Nick and Kate

May 3, 2011

Both the Independent on Sunday and the Daily Mail featured the erstwhile director of housing for Hammersmith, Nick Johnson, and his partner, Kate Davies, this week. Good investigative journalism but slightly missing the point, which is why are they paid so much out of public funds to promote private housing? The same day I saw [...]

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Brave New World

April 26, 2011

I decided to spend my Easter break from Parliament in a planning inquiry. The Examination in Public of Hammersmith & Fulham’s Core Strategy to be precise. I expect you’d like to know what I found out. Actually you probably would. These are the proposals for what development the council intends to allow in H&F from [...]

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