18 March - Sell ’em cheap and buy ’em dear
The days when I could rely on a team of five researching and submitting
Bexley stories have long gone and for the most part Bonkers relies on random
input from strangers, sometimes anonymous strangers.
One such individual must have an interest in the lamentable housing situation in the borough because
he - or she, but I am going to stick with he - has several times pointed me in
an interesting direction or comes up with some little gems of information himself.
He has a good memory too and recently steered me all the way back to
1st July
2017. Bonkers had reported that Councillor Stefano Borella revealed at a
People Scrutiny meeting that Bexley Council was wasting money - over
a longish period perhaps - by selling off its own housing stock only to buy it back
again at inflated prices for use as temporary accommodation.
Nearly two years ago 74 homes had been purchased with another 190 to follow soon
and we know that it is still going on,
Cabinet Member Alex Sawyer said so.
Bonkers’ tame researcher is trying to track them via the Land Registry looking out for large batch purchases
One batch he came up with recently includes the following addresses
which at one time may have been Council houses. He thinks
Bexley Council is likely to be the buyer; whether it is, only Bexley Council
and the immediate neighbours are likely to know.
18 Halstead Road, DA8 3HX
140 Birling Road, DA8 3HS
10 Elmstead Road, DA8 3JA
12 Stelling Road, DA8 3JH
153 Birling Road, DA8 3HR
82 Halcot Avenue, DA6 7QD
169 Halcot Avenue, DA6 7QA
97 Lensbury Way, SE2 9TA
The price of all the DA8 properties was £550,000 while SE2 went for
just under half a million and one of the DA6s a hundred grand less than that.
Four months later it sold for an extra £120,000.