A series of squats in Rushcroft Road, Brixton, will be refurbished and rented as affordable homes while others will be sold off, a senior councillor has said.
Lambeth council confirmed it will sell two of the four-storey Victorian mansion blocks that it owns to private developers, effectively using some of the profit to refurbish a further 24 flats after the squatters are evicted.
Cllr Pete Robbins, cabinet member for neighbourhood services, said: “Following repossession, Lambeth is retaining and refurbishing 24 dwellings, consisting of three leaseholders and two ‘flying’ freeholders and 19 flats currently occupied by unauthorised persons, which will be allocated via Choice Based Lettings.”
A ‘flying’ freeholder is someone who lives in a property that overhangs another property – for instance, if a room is above a shared corridor space or a balcony above a room in a flat below.
The council isn’t legally allowed to ringfence money from the sale of one asset to spend on another, so the money will go into the main council pot and it is a separate promise to refurbish the remaining flats.
Your headline says 24 flats will be retained for “social housing”, suggesting they will be let at social rent level, but the story refers to three leaseholders and two flying freeholders – can you clarify.
It would be interesting to know how many flats are being sold off.
[…] Lambeth Council will keep 24 flats for social housing after Rushcroft Road evictions […]