The Bemerton Estate [Google Earth]

PERMISSION to build 54 new homes on an estate near Caledonian Road has been granted – but the inclusion of four shared-ownership homes, where a household would have to earn £90,000 a year to afford them, has sparked backlash from critics.

Islington Council has a policy that half of any new development must be “affordable housing”, but the decision to include four new homes on the Bemerton Estate – where an owner would have to pay £2,377 a month to live there – under the “affordable” bracket has been met with frustration.

Councillor Phil Graham, an independent sitting in the Town Hall, said: “I don’t agree with touting it as affordable housing when it’s not affordable. Who’s earning 90k a year? Anything where you need 90k a year is not affordable. I know we live in Islington, but the majority of people are not in that wage bracket.”

Meanwhile, Councillor Benali Hamdache, who leads the Greens, said the figures “show just how unaffordable shared ownership can be, how it ­doesn’t really meet the definition of affordable, and why the local and London plan’s definition of affordable has to be strengthened.”

Given financial constraints and increased construction costs, Labour councillors are said to be pleased that the project is going ahead. Paul Convery, a Caledonian ward councillor, said: “There are schools and households in the area who are eagerly awaiting these affordable homes. They’re going to be pretty chuffed that we’re going to do this.”

With regard to the shared ownership homes, he said he would be “pushing for those four units to be social rent”.

In recent years the council has cancelled a number of new-build schemes, including the Quaker Court, Triangle Estate, and Finsbury Leisure Centre.

Where new-build schemes have started, many have been subject to extreme delays.

But Cllr Convery rejected this and said he would “challenge the assertion that people have lost faith in the council”.

“We haven’t cancelled any projects,” he told the Tribune.

“There’s a campaign group, a mob of people saying we’re not building, and they’ve grabbed a few figures from here and there [but] we’ve come through a pandemic, catastrophic inflation in building costs, it’s a tough environment.

“We said we would build new council homes, and these are new council homes.”

Cllr Convery added that the council was “very confident that it’s going to get built”, but also said: “We can’t guarantee that tomorrow is going to be a sunny day.”

He said: “The executive has focused down on four major schemes and have cut some out. We’re concentrating on schemes like Bemerton and these are the ones that will definitely get built. You will see spades in the ground by election time.”

Islington’s housing chief, Councillor John Woolf, said: “The message here could not be clearer: opposition councillors are not taking the housing ­crisis seriously. They are playing party politics while we are getting on delivering much-needed social housing.

“Alongside 23 homes for social rent, we are regenerating the estate, building energy-efficient homes and providing commercial space for local groups and the Cally economy.

“To deliver a viable scheme we must be financially responsible; we must recognise economic realities after the Tory government sent interest rates and inflation through the roof.

“As discussed at the planning committee, we are seeking to eventually deliver the four shared-ownership flats as social rent if we can.

“This is opposition for opposition’s sake. They either oppose our schemes or make misleading attacks that are totally oblivious to economic reality. This is politics before people. Instead, Islington Labour is getting on delivering the much-needed social housing our residents desperately need.”