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Trying to find somewhere to live in London is a special sort of nightmare. Prices are so high. People bid on rent now. Flats are already taken before you’ve got through to the letting agent, who is often angry at you for asking. Then you finally find somewhere and it’s got at least one mouldy patch.
London’s housing crisis isn’t news to anyone; in fact it’s been pretty much the city’s biggest problem for quite some time. In the latest effort to ease the capital’s desperate need for more places for people to live, seven boroughs are being given massive grants from the government to develop property on unused lands.
The money is part of a national scheme called the Brownfield Land Release Fund (BLRF) which has been in the works for a few years now. Essentially, the department for housing will give a total of £68 million to councils across England to build on brownfield plots, which are bits of land which were previously built on but have since become dilapidated or polluted. Renovating on this sort of land is tricky, but it does make good use of an otherwise useless space.
Prime Minister Kier Starmer himself has voiced his support for the BLRF, saying, ‘This funding for councils will see disused sites and industrial wastelands transformed into thousands of new homes in places that people want to live and work…
‘Our brownfield-first approach will not only ramp up housebuilding but also create more jobs, deliver much-needed infrastructure, and boost economic growth across the country.’
Of the seven boroughs receiving money, Camden is getting the most, claiming a cool £3.3 million. Let’s hope that it’s cheaper to build homes than to buy them, because that much would just about get you a couple of nice one bed flats in Camden, if you were to really stretch it.
The full list of boroughs benefiting from the BLRF, including the amounts they’ll be given, is as follows:
- London Borough of Barking & Dagenham – £1,286,899
- London Borough of Barnet – £1,276,367
- London Borough of Camden – £3,261,639
- London Borough of Croydon – £1,258,800
- London Borough of Hackney – £855,680
- London Borough of Haringey – £2,747,057
- London Borough of Newham – £1,720,974
The cash will primarily go towards boring administrative jobs like clearing decaying buildings and connecting up water and internet infrastructures, so it will be a while before these homes are actually built, but it could transform some of the less picturesque lots in the city if done right. Fingers crossed, Londoners.
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