Where would you like 500 new homes to be built in Camden?
Julia Gregory, local democracy reporter
Housing designs around Agar Grove - Credit: Mae Architects
Camden Council is set to call on the community to help it decide where to build more than 500 new homes.
The local authority said it looked at potential sites in 2017 and is aiming to put 533 extra homes on pockets of land as part of its small sites scheme.
The town hall is launching a community call-out this autumn to hear about plots of land that residents think could be used for council and London Living Rent homes.
There are more than 6,000 families on the town hall’s housing waiting list.
“We all know the desperate need for council housing in this borough,” Cllr Danny Beales, Camden’s cabinet member for housing, said.
Cllr Danny Beales - Credit: Kareen Cox
He added: “A day will hardly go past without us having case work in our inbox from families in desperate situations – overcrowded, homeless, concerned about their young children and whether they will be able to stay in Camden when they grow up."
The council’s planning lead said the proposed housebuilding programme “goes some way, never far enough, but a significant way, to helping a large number of those families in desperate need”.
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Cllr Beales said he wanted to hear what would improve people’s lives. He encouraged residents to suggest particular sites that it owns, especially smaller and infill sites.
Camden will start consultations on local estates about its plans to find out what residents want, along with doing some design work to finalise its first sites.
The council will also look at grants, borrowing and “a small number of disposals to invest in the delivery of 100 per cent affordable homes on the retained sites”.
Housing in Kentish Town - Credit: PA Archive/Press Association Images
Camden Council recently secured £86.4 million from the Mayor of London’s affordable housing programme.
The funding will be used to deliver 569 social rent homes in Camden over the next seven years.
The new homes will be delivered as part of the council’s community investment programme (CIP), which has built more than 950 new homes to date.
The CIP should see the council spend more than £1 billion on new council homes, schools and community spaces.
Camden is one of a number of London councils looking to ramp up the number of homes it builds to help tackle the capital’s housing crisis.
Further details on Camden's small sites scheme will be published later this year.
