Shocking Truth Revealed: Cambridge Flats Built WITHOUT Affordable Housing – You Won’t Believe Why!

A £40m project to build flats in the heart of the university town of Cambridge was supposed to provide “much-needed local housing”. But the development was not required to include affordable housing and now a BBC investigation has found that at least a fifth of it has been sold abroad. Because?

Apartments at 3&4 Station Square overlook Cambridge Station, giving residents quick access to rail connections and the historic city center.

But standing in front of the two blocks, Frank Gawthrop, secretary of a local neighborhood association, says what happened is “absolutely reprehensible.”

A council member believes they are an example of how the city’s housing market is “boosting and reinforcing inequality.”

At least a fifth of the 89 flats have been sold to foreign buyers. Some apartments have appeared on short-term rental websites.

A local planning policy aims for new properties to be 40% “affordable”, but the £40 million development was allowed to go ahead without affordable housing.

The developer says it didn’t break any rules or guidelines and international buyers paid prices in line with UK buyers.

Independent city councilor Sam Davies says it is “absolutely unbelievable” that “a prime property in this location” has not generated enough profit for developers to provide affordable housing.

“Property is built and bought here not as a way to meet local needs, which is of course the justification that’s always given, it’s a global investment vehicle,” he says, “and that has a hugely distorting effect on the pricing and availability of property here.”

However, some real estate analysts argue that expensive construction projects cannot be carried out without financing from international buyers.

In 2019, Bob Weston, Chairman and CEO of Essex-based developer Weston Homes, which built and sold the apartments, said they would “help provide much-needed local housing”.

When planning permission was granted in 2017, a report on behalf of the owner, Brookgate, argued that if the development had to provide affordable housing, it would not be “viable”.

Cambridge City Council’s policy is that 40% of new developments must be “affordable housing”, meaning that if rented, rents would not exceed 60% of the city average.

The council’s planning committee approved the plan without the need for affordable housing.

Weston Homes says it was “not involved in obtaining the planning” for 3&4 Station Square, while the council says its planning process “was consistent with approved planning practice and national planning policy requirements.”

Duncan Dennis, 32, says finding a flat to rent in Cambridge is “probably the hardest thing I’ve ever done in my life.”

He and his girlfriend decided to move in together, prompting an “infuriating” and “utterly exhausting” property search.

The pub’s former manager says they applied for 30 properties in five weeks, but kept losing them. “High demand” properties “would be gone in 48 hours,” he says.

“I thought running a pub through Covid was difficult,” he says.

“I had less stress doing that than I had in the last six weeks trying to find a house.

“It’s given me some sleepless nights recently just because you end up worrying about all the ‘what ifs’: what if we don’t find a place? What if they deny us? What if they decide to change their mind and go to for someone else? What are we going to do?”

Within weeks of Weston Homes starting listing the one- and two-bedroom apartments in February 2019, several were sold to buyers who Land Registry documents show were based in Hong Kong.

A design firm says it produced brochures in English and Mandarin. A exhibition was organized in a five-star hotel in Hong Kong.

in a article Commenting on the development, a real estate agent operating in Malaysia said that Cambridge had “an incredibly strong property market” and that properties in the city offered “excellent capital appreciation and strong rental returns for property investors.”

Land Registry documents show that at least 17 of the 89 apartments at 3&4 Station Square were purchased by buyers domiciled in Hong Kong or Singapore.

Another 10 appear to have been bought by real estate investment trusts, which own the leases for five floors each.

Gawthrop, secretary of the South Petersfield Residents Association, calls the situation “dire” and describes a “big generation divide” in the town “caused by this type of inward investment that is driving prices beyond the reach of the common people”. .

“Local youth just don’t see it,” he says.

Cambridge has one of the lowest property rates outside of London. The proportion of households that own their homes dropped from around 49% in 2011 to 45.8% in 2021.

Weston Homes says that the properties were marketed “locally, nationally and internationally” and that “international buyers did not pay a premium.”

One international buyer paid £441,600 for an apartment, while another paid £387,500. A two-bedroom apartment in the development has been advertised to rent for £3,200 a month.

The city council says it “has seen no evidence that the increase in property prices in the city is caused by foreign or overseas sales of a small number of properties (relative to the total housing stock in the city). “.

But Ms Davies believes that some in the city are “beginning to question what they are getting from the growth of the city”.

Graeme Hodgson says he “absolutely would have stayed in Cambridge” but the 51-year-old found he and his family priceless to get out of the city where they had built a “network of relationships”.

“It was a shame to move,” he says, but “it was a necessity.”

Hodgson, a father of four, bought a four-bedroom house 10 miles (16 km) from Cambridge in Northstowe. Both he and his wife have professional jobs but could not find a suitable house to buy in the city.

She says she needed “really affordable housing for local people” and fears her children will find it “almost impossible to find a place they can afford in Cambridge.”

A Weston Homes spokesperson says: “The lack of supply of rental homes across the country is well documented.

“Selling property to buyers who intend to rent out their property, whether in the UK or abroad, is a normal part of our sales strategy across our portfolio and does not contravene any rules or guidelines.”

Brookgate, which owns freehold on the land, says it “sold its interest to Weston Homes in 2018, who developed the buildings as its residential development partner and was responsible for all sales and marketing of the residential apartments.”

Cambridge City Council says it employed “independent feasibility experts” to review Brookgate’s planning application and that the “valuation exercise partly reflected the existing high use value” of a commercial building that replaced 3&4 Station Square.

It adds: “Post market conditions and costs may have changed, however the process the council followed was consistent with approved practice and national planning policy requirements that still apply to developments.”

According to the council, the broader redevelopment of land near the station has seen the construction of 325 new homes, 121 of which are affordable.

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