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Prime Minister Gordon Brown chats to Zoe Broadhead in her new home |
PM is furnished with no more than a cuppa as he visits nurse!
Brown pops by to see how scheme is putting key workers
on property ladder
WHEN Prime Minister Gordon Brown dropped by for a cup of tea, Whittington nurse Zoe Broadhead didn’t vacuum the carpet or get her best china out.
Instead, Ms Broadhead, who only moved into her new one-bed home in Hornsey Road a week ago, showed the PM around the unfurnished and uncarpeted flat and gave him a sturdy metal chair to sit on.
She said: “He’s just a normal guy. It wasn’t really nerve-wracking talking to him. He brought me a box of chocolates with 10 Downing Street on them. He was nice. I was more nervous about all the cameras.”
Mr Brown paid a flying visit to the Elthorne estate in Archway on Tuesday morning to find out how a new scheme for first-time buyers and key workers could help people like Ms Broadhead buy homes closer to work.
Ms Broadhead was able to buy her flat with money from a previous government shared equity scheme, which helped supplement her mortgage.
But, she said, with house prices still too high, many of her colleagues are forced to live miles from the hospital. Mr Brown, who had time for a quick cup of tea – white with no sugar – on the 20-minute visit, said: “We want to do more for people who may need an extra hand to buy their first home. By offering new grants and sharing a stake in their home, we are making the dream of a new home more affordable for thousands of low-income, first-time buyers and key workers such as nurses and teachers.”
Ms Broadhead, 27, said: “He came to see me because I had just bought a property using the Open Market homebuyers scheme.
“He asked me how long I’d been living there and about my decorating plans.
“He joked about what colours I was going to paint my walls.”
She added: “He said they’ve got this new scheme, which I won’t be eligible for. I used a similar scheme, but they’ve changed it. It enabled me to buy a property close to work. You get a normal mortgage and you get another set amount to help you buy something for slightly more money.
“Without it I wouldn’t have been able to buy a property. It’s a shame that on my salary I can’t afford to buy somewhere close by. I know a few people who have used the scheme before, which is why I knew about it. A lot of people who work at the Whittington have to travel very far because they can’t afford to live close by.”
The scheme will give cash grants of £1,500 to qualifying buyers to help with costs such as solicitors’ charges, fees and furniture. They will be offered to people who take up a shared equity loan under the government’s Open Market HomeBuy Scheme. Key workers will be able to boost their purchasing power by up to 50 per cent. |
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