Peabody housing association has acquired the former Holloway Women’s Prison site in London for £82m, to build more than 600 social rented and affordable homes
The deal, which includes a £42m loan from the London Mayor’s Land Fund, has enabled Peabody housing association to buy the site. It requires Peabody, working in partnership with private developer London Square, to start work by 2022 on over 1,000 homes, of which at least 60% must be social rented and other genuinely affordable homes.
City Hall worked with Islington Council on the planning policy for the site, which set a minimum expectation of 50% affordable housing. The Mayor’s loan deal requires this to rise to 60%, and of these affordable homes, 70% will be social rent, with the remainder either shared ownership or London Living Rent.
Making the announcement today (8 March), Sadiq Khan said: “For too long, Londoners have rightly been fed up of seeing public land sold off to the highest bidder and then developed with little or no social or affordable housing. We have made sure the Holloway prison site will be different.
“Our ground-breaking loan to Peabody means the majority of new homes on this site will be genuinely affordable – with around four in 10 of all new homes being for social rent. We’ve developed planning policies with the council that support this, and that also set out how the development should include public green space and a new centre for women.
“This shows what is possible on public land. We’ve been able to do this even with the limited powers we currently have. Ministers now need to play their part and give us the step-change in investment and powers over land we need to truly fix London’s housing crisis.”
Homes on the site will start by 2022, with the aim of completing by 2026.
Brendan Sarsfield, Chief Executive of Peabody, added: “We are committed to working with LB Islington and the GLA to deliver an exceptional new housing scheme on this historic site.
“We are pleased to confirm we will deliver 60% level of genuinely-affordable homes integrating existing Islington communities with a new Peabody estate. As well as providing new homes we will also ensure social infrastructure and placemaking are at the heart of our proposals.”
I’m delighted that the old Holloway Prison site will be transformed into much-needed housing by @PeabodyLDN with a loan from our Land Fund, with 60 per cent of the thousand new homes to be socially rented and genuinely affordable. pic.twitter.com/SNBqUagVT9
— Mayor of London (@MayorofLondon) March 8, 2019
