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The new-look Huntley Street, rebranded as Bloomsbury Terrace |
Firm’s nurses flats jackpot
Company that bought former hospital building rakes in £11m
ONE of the country’s biggest property developers has cashed in on its controversial overhaul of nursing homes to the tune of around £11 million and stands to make even more in the coming months.
Barratt Homes has already been paid by private buyers keen to snap up luxury two-bedroom homes in an imposing six-floor Edwardian mansion block in Huntley Street, Bloomsbury – properties once owned by the University College London Hospital (UCLH) when they were offered exclusively to its nurses who needed somewhere cheap to live.
The company said it had sold almost half of the 33 flats months in advance of refurbishment work and that interest was “buzzing” across London’s property market.
Even if buyers only paid the minimum prices available, Barratt will have scooped around £11.2 million from sales so far with the prospect of a similar amount to come from the other half still being marketed and up for grabs. Prices range from £700,000 to £1 million. Deals can include designer kitchens, balconies and a daytime concierge service. The first occupants are expected to move in within months.
It is a world away from the kind of properties that campaigners had in mind when they discovered the block was to be refurbished and there were calls for a strict requirement for flats to be offered to nurses first.
When Barratt took control of the development – now known simply as Bloomsbury Terrace – a row over whether the best interest of key workers was at the heart of the deal fired up Holborn and St Pancras MP Frank Dobson, ward councillors and housing campaigners.
“It does absolutely nothing for people in this area where everyone in Camden is concerned about homelessness and people being priced out. I’m really angry about it,” said Mr Dobson, when it was revealed more than 60 per cent of the building would be turned over to private buyers.
While there is the promise of 20 flats at affordable prices that will be offered to key workers, including nurses, it is not the kind of refurbishment that campaigners were hoping for.
Barratt nevertheless are optimistic about their fortunes in Huntley Street and made no mention of a slump in the housing market as they advised customers to move quickly before the rest of the flats are sold.
Barratt East London managing director Alastair Baird said: “It has taken over a year to bring this development to the point of starting, and it’s fair to say that the central London property market has been absolutely buzzing with anticipation from the outset.”
He added: “Opportunities like this are incredibly rare in WC1, especially in this beautiful residential area on the Bloomsbury-Fitzrovia cusp.
“So it’s hardly surprising we’ve had well over 100 serious inquiries and at our first preview, held at a local hotel, almost a quarter of the apartments available for sale were reserved.”
The deal for Huntley Street was partly engineered by English Partnerships (EP), a government regeneration quango, on the basis that the block had been left vacant for 10 years and was supposedly ripe for social housing.
EP bought the buildings from UCLH in 2004 in an agreement worth around £9 million, but soon after made arrangements with Barratt Homes to spread the cost of the work and ensure some part of the overhaul would go to key workers.
Duncan Innes, EP’s regional manager, said: “If Barratt had bought it on the open market direct from UCLH it would have been a complete private scheme. I think we’ve done a very good and constructive deal.” |
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