Croydon to sell council homes to pay off debts

By Tara O’Connor, Local Democracy Reporter

Croydon council will sell off a council house which has been empty for 10 years due to “major structural issues”.

It is one of five properties the council has agreed to put up for sale in a bid to bring in £3.8million.,

The authority said the money will reduce the council’s debts which costs it £66million a year in interest and repayments.

The council’s cabinet approved the sale of the five properties on Wednesday night.

As well as a three-bedroom house, the sales include a two-bedroom flat, a seven-bedroom house previously used as a hostel, a former equipment storage site and a three-bedroom house on the edge of Norbury Hall Park.

The council’s cabinet member for finance, Councillor Jason Cummings, said: “There is a mixture of sites, I don’t think any of them will be particularly contentious.

“All of these required a significant amount of work from the council to bring them up standards.

“Given our current financial position, it is a much better option for us to offload some sites and reduce our debt burden and leave that future investment to the purchaser.”

The council will sell off 59 Wingate Crescent, a two-storey 1960s house which has been empty since 2013 due to major structural issues.

A former site used by Croydon council in Boulogne Road to store equipment has already received 12 offers, the highest of which was £2.5million.

The council has been recommended to accept an offer from an insurance company to use as a training facility and carry out vehicle repairs. However, it notes this was not the highest offer.

Previously, a developer offered to take on the site for £1.4million to build affordable housing but planning issues with the proposed scheme meant they withdrew the offer.

In Addiscombe, 58 Ashburton Road will be sold – the seven-bedroom Edwardian house was previously used as a hostel for adults with mental illnesses. It is currently let out to a counselling service and expected to be sold this year.

A three-bedroom house on the edge of Norbury Hall Park is set to be auctioned off. The council said until August 2022 it was used as a “serviced tenancy” where an employee lives in a council property, but the lodger has been moved elsewhere. The property has subsidence issues.

The final property is a two-bedroom flat above a fast-food restaurant in Croydon High Street. It is not laid out well and has poor access so the authority no longer considers it to be suitable for council housing.

The council said consideration was made to keep the three houses within the council’s housing revenue account (HRA) but this was decided against due to the “substantial work” needed.

The money from the sale of the Wingate Crescent and the High Street flat will go to the HRA, which is ring-fenced to be spent on the management and maintenance of council-owned housing.

Pictured top: A house in Wingate Crescent is one of five properties being sold off by Croydon council. (Picture: Croydon council)