Boris Johnson is coming to London’s East End to drive a bulldozer to start pulling down bits of an old Victorian hospital.
The Mayor of London turns up at the former St Clement’s Hospital site in Mile End today to ‘drive’ the bulldozer that begins demolishing parts of the original Victorian workhouse in the Mile End Road
Building can then start on Britain’s first urban land trust housing that he gave the green light to.
The scheme by the East London Land Trust is the result of a 10-year campaign first raised as a permanent solution to London’s rising cost of housing when Ken Livingstone was mayor at a London Citizens assembly in 2004.
But it was Ken’s successor Boris who finally agreed to part of the six-acre site being used for trust housing as Chair of the Homes and Communities Agency’s regional committee in March, 2012.
The land trust is developing a housing project where it keeps the land, while home-owners buy the property on it at 40 per cent of the London market rate.
Householders then sell back to the trust at guaranteed prices when they move on and the property goes to future home-owners at fixed rates.
London Citizens which set up the land trust sees it as a pilot for a the next major goal for more land at the Olympic Park as a lasting legacy for East Enders and their families in bricks and mortar.
Comments: Our rules
We want our comments to be a lively and valuable part of our community - a place where readers can debate and engage with the most important local issues. The ability to comment on our stories is a privilege, not a right, however, and that privilege may be withdrawn if it is abused or misused.
Please report any comments that break our rules.
Read the rules here