Peel Holdings (Media) Ltd is set to receive a cheap public money loan of £8,302,984 from the uber controversial Greater Manchester Housing Fund for its Lightbox block of uber unaffordable apartments at MediaCityUK on Salford Quays which it's re-branded as being in `Manchester'.
The Greater Manchester Housing Fund is a pot of £300million of public money that the Greater Manchester Combined Authority has to hand out to developers. But the money has only been used at the Tory Government's insistence for funding unaffordable housing, with some of the richest developers in the North West being subsidised by some the poorest Council Tax payers in the country. Salford City Council, for instance, underwrites the GM Housing Fund by £21.129million (see here).
Salford developments that have benefitted from the GM Housing Fund so far include Sunday Times Rich List darling, Fred Done and his FICM Ltd, which got a £17.312million loan from the Fund towards its two horrendous blocks of 380 apartments by the Black Friars pub in Trinity.
WB Developments (Salford) Ltd also got a cheap £42.5million loan to build 491 apartments on the Wilburn Street Basin site, at the back of the Regent Road retail centre by the River Irwell, while Rowlinson Developments' controversial scheme for 164 apartments on Peel Holdings' Pomona, across the canal from Ordsall, also got a £10.3million loan from the Fund (see here).
Now the tax haven based Peel Holdings itself is set to benefit with £8,302,984 from the Fund to build apartments at the Lightbox which begin at £138,000 for a tiny studio flats and cost £385,500 for a three bed apartment.
Labour GM Mayor candidate Andy Burnham has slated the GM Housing Fund, questioning how this devolution policy is helping to solve the region's housing crisis...
"There are concerns that the fund has been used to provide loans to large companies, which should have used their own finance instead, and that it is too focused on city centre and luxury schemes" he stated "...I cannot see how this approach will this solve our housing problems. Instead, we need a Greater Manchester housing fund that is totally focused on tackling Greater Manchester's housing crisis.
"If devolution is to mean anything, then surely it should be left to us to determine our own housing priorities?" he added "I think so, and that is why I will renegotiate the aims of this fund so that we can fully focus it on the long-term goal of an affordable home for all."
Greater Manchester Combined Authority (GMCA), the so-called GM `super council', is recommending approval for the huge Peel Holdings loan at its meeting next Friday.
See previous related Salford Star articles
Andy Burnham Slates GM Housing Fund - click here
Salford MP Slates Tale of Two Cities MediaCityUK - click here
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