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| Housing Minister Alok Sharma and Quintain's Head of Communications Harriet Park |
Hard on the heels of Brent Council's decision LINK to spend £17.6m of Community Infrastructure Levy (CIL) on public realm infrastructure in the Quintain development comes news that the UK government is to loan Quintain £76m to provide infrastructure for its Wembley development.
Quintain, owned by Dallas based private equity company Lone Star LINK seems to be doing quite well from both local and national government.
Quintain Chief Executive Angus Dodd, said: “This £65m government loan will be match funded by Quintain to provide a £130m infrastructure investment into Wembley Park to deliver new car and coach parking, an energy centre and the first phase of the new seven-acre public park. Not only will this funding allow these critical elements to be brought forward, it will also support the more rapid delivery of new homes.”
The new homes in question are 7,600 new flats of which 6,800 will be for private rent. It is the UK's biggest development of homes built specifically for private rent. These homes will not be affordable for Wembley residents earning the average local income.
5 comments:
Does anyone know where Alok Sharma lives? I bet it isn't anywhere near Wembley Park which he considers to be so wonderful. As for the Government "loan" and "a £130m infrastructure investment into Wembley Park to deliver new car and coach parking";I was under the impression that Brent and the Government wanted to curtail car use and force us all to travel by public transport. Now they propose to attract even more traffic into our area by providing more car and coach parking in Wembley Park. That should make the Quintain Developments more attractive and boost sales of their unaffordable accommodation. A great deal of "our" money appears to be finding its way into the coffers of a chosen few. Do we get a say in any of this? Silly question.
They taking the living piss out of us. What about the real residents of Wembley! Who are living in overcrowded, substandard properties? What about the 20,000+ on the Council waiting list for true social affordable housing?
We need less parking not more. Need to encourage other forms of transport particularly cycling. Why does the Olympic park have Boris bikes but Wembley doesn't? Same distance from central London.
Cycling has its place but you need to take into account that many people of advancing age are unable to cycle due to arthritic knees and other physical ailments as a result of a lifetime of manual work. My own father cycled every day of his working life, a minimum of 30 miles a day; many days much more. He was a keen cyclist but was prevented from doing so after retirement due to the above. Ridiculous cycle lanes add to the problems. Most are installed to be able to say "we have ***miles of cycle lanes in the Borough". Many run for just a few yards and then divert you back into motor traffic. Others are shared with parking bays and potholes. Let us encourage more use of cycles but it is not "the" solution unless you are still young, feeling invincible or without physical impairment.
The good news is when we go into recession with Brexit, they will become one of the biggest Council owned estates in the UK, just like the old Chalkhill, and we will still be paying the loan back to Lone Star Real Estates.
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