Promises, Promises…

Promises, Promises… Time was when it all seemed so easy. All you had to do was promise something and it seemed like it was really going to happen.

Our gnomes have been excavating the planning documentation and have had difficulty in finding any substantial new housing developments that were not already approved under the Wales administration.

The word coming out of the planning department is that Newham has been very unsuccessful in attracting new housing developments. That would explain why the annual housing grant to Newham has dropped so dramatically. Time was when Newham was regularly in the top three recipients because development work was integral to the regeneration of the borough. Not now it seems.

Under its ‘levelling up’ programme, the government has recently released nearly £58m to prepare brown-field sites for redevelopment.

Newham remains in the highest priority category. It came as something of a surprise to discover that whilst other London boroughs were getting in sums from a few hundred thousand pounds to a million and a half, Newham was getting nothing. Waltham Forest was granted £1.4m despite being Priority 2, (Newham is Priority 1).

It does seem that this is a vote of no-confidence in the mayor’s plans to build more homes in Newham.

We can still see buildings going up, so it looks like development is continuing apace. The trouble is, these developments are largely if not completely, developments initiated under the Wales regime. It looks like housing development is about to hit the buffers.

If some of our elected leaders would like to correct us and let us know of the list of major new developments that will be following on, we’d be happy to print the details.

Until then, it looks like Mayor Fiaz will be relying upon the work of former Mayor Wales to deliver the 1000 new council homes she promised.