Camden drives forward work to build thousands of more homes and improve quality of housing
Camden Council has outlined plans to improve the quality of its council housing as well as build thousands of new homes to respond to growing local housing needs.
Camden’s Cabinet last night [Wednesday 15 January] agreed a five-year Housing Strategy which outlines plans to build more council homes and drive-up standards across its housing.
In total, £2.3billion will be invested in Camden’s leading Community Investment programme which has so far delivered 1,780 homes - 70 per cent of these homes being affordable homes. A further 330 homes are currently under construction and will be part of the 4,850 homes Camden is set to deliver, including 1,800 social rented homes.
Alongside this, an additional 280 family sized homes will be purchased on top of the 307 homes bought to date to increase the number of larger homes that are available for social rent. This will provide more than 100 local families living in overcrowded conditions with a suitable home.
With over 8,000 people on Camden’s housing waitlist, and 70% of these families living in severely overcrowded conditions, there is a real need to increase the number of family sized housing in the borough and build more high-quality housing.
An additional £350million will also be invested into existing homes to ensure they are safe, warm and dry and well-maintained.
Part of this funding will come from the sale of empty, small or unsuitable homes with significant repair costs, generating up to £265million which will be directly reinvested into council homes.
Our goal is to get the thousands of families on our waitlist, many who are living in overcrowded conditions, into a safe and suitable home, as well as ensure our existing housing is well-maintained and high-quality. By increasing the number of bigger, family sized homes we have in Camden, we can help address the massive shortage of homes people can afford and respond to the growing needs of our residents.
In a time where social housing is severely underfunded, we must do all we can to ensure our homes are safe, warm and dry and of a quality our residents deserve. We have been doing all we can to invest in our homes and increase our housing supply, and we will continue to make our case to government to secure more funding so we can buy and build even more homes in the borough.
