The Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, has acquired a hospital site in Haringey which could accommodate 800 homes, using the £250m Land Fund for the first time.
The plot, which comprises two thirds of the St Ann’s Hospital site, was acquired from Barnet, Enfield and Haringey Mental Health NHS Trust in a deal worth “tens of millions of pounds”.
The Land Fund was launched in 2017 and Khan plans to use it to buy sites in London to prepare land for new and affordable housing.
According to City Hall, half of the homes that will be developed on the St Ann’s Hospital site will be “genuinely affordable”.
This represents an increase on an existing planning permission for the site, which was secured in 2015 and would have delivered only 470 homes, with just 14% being affordable.
Redevelopment of NHS facilities
The investment will also fund the redevelopment of NHS facilities on the 11.24-hectare site, including a new mental health inpatient building. Planning permission for the new health facilities was granted by Haringey Council on Tuesday night.
Speaking about the acquisition, Khan said: “As mayor, I’ve set out how City Hall will take a more active and direct approach to unlocking sites across the capital. Late last year I announced my plans for a new Land Fund to buy sites – and at St Ann’s we are showing what this can achieve. Not only will my intervention unlock this site, but it will also allow us nearly to double the number of homes, and crucially increase six-fold the number of affordable homes that had previously been given planning permission.
“Despite the government still failing to give us the investment and powers we need to make a true step change in homebuilding in London, we are showing what can be done. It is an approach councils and other local authorities across the country may look to adopt to ensure they play a key role in fixing the housing crisis.”
Barnet, Enfield and Haringey Mental Health NHS Trust chairman, Michael Fox, added: “We are delighted that the Mayor of London has stepped in and purchased the surplus land, which means the current mental health inpatient wards at St Ann’s Hospital will soon be replaced by brand new, state-of-the-art mental health facilities. We look forward to working with him as the plans for the residential development progress and we build our new mental health wards, which will be amongst the best in the country.”
CBRE advised the NHS trust on the transaction.
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