Thursday 3 April 2008

Tower block plans hit house prices

Residents backing onto the Arcade site who recently had their flats surveyed were shocked to discover that they were worth £10,000 less thanks to the tower block plans.
This stands in stark contrast to the previous plans for redevelopment. When the council was working with developers on a seven-storey scheme, property experts told us that the area would be improved and prices would go up.
"I’m appalled that my flat is worth £10,000 less thanks to the development. I’m going to lose my view, my light, my privacy... and now a large sum of money,” said Carolyn Magson, whose garden will literally be overshadowed by the tower block.
“I’m sure values will be reduced,” said Philip Waterfield of surveyors Strettons, who blames the tower block but also market conditions. “Speaking personally, I wouldn’t want it at the bottom of my garden full stop!”
This council is hell bent on dropping skyscrapers into traditional low-rise areas. It could be your back garden next. This affects all residents in Waltham Forest, so if you don’t want your garden overshadowed or your house price to drop, please join our Fight The Height campaign – click on the Join Us link at the top right of this page.

1 comment:

Dush said...

I can understand residents being concerned that their house/flat prices have fallen. But how much is this to do with the bubble inflated prices deflating than with high rise buildings? The latter is a far bigger factor. House prices will continue to fall for another 1.5 years at least. This is outside of any high rise buildings.

Also there's nothing wrong with cheaper housing, we need more housing. The key is that it needs to be affordable so that local communities can live there. Is there enough space to create large, energy wasting houses? In an era of dwindling energy available and climate change surely we should be encouraging smaller, more energy efficient housing? In that case we would need to build high rise towers, unless the population drops dramatically.