London borough ditches regeneration partnership despite legal threat

The London Borough of Haringey has dropped its controversial regeneration partnership with developer Lendlease despite the threat of legal action.

It intends instead to set up a council-owned company to build homes.

Previous Labour council leader Claire Kober had championed the Haringey Development Vehicle (HDV) under which council land, buildings and homes would have been handed to a joint venture owned 50-50 by the council and Lendlease for redevelopment.

This proved highly politically controversial and saw several supporters of the HDV de-selected as Labour candidates for May’s elections.

An extraordinary council meeting called in February by the opposition Liberal Democrats saw Ms Kober promise not to sign the HDV deal until after the election.

Haringey’s new Labour leader Joseph Ejiofor said: “The preference of this administration, as stated in our manifesto, is to build council homes on our own land.

“We firmly believe that what is currently public land should remain in public ownership. We are committed to building new, affordable homes over the next four years – including the delivery of 1,000 new council homes – and we start from the principle the council should be delivering those homes itself.”

He said the council had taken “decisive action to set a new direction” by abandoning the HDV, and added: “We are obviously concerned at the threat of protracted legal action by Lendlease, however the people of Haringey elected us to govern their borough, and to take decisions that are in the best interests of all Haringey’s residents…this is an informed decision which we are taking with our eyes open”.

In response, Lendlease’s chief executive for Europe Dan Labbad did not explicitly renew its threat of legal action, but made his unhappiness clear.

 “We’ve made every effort to work with the council to find a way forward to help solve Haringey’s housing crisis,” he said. 

“At the end of the day it’s the residents of Haringey who will suffer most from this decision, given that 10,000 families remain in desperate need of a home.”

Mr Laddab said Lendlease was “extremely disappointed the council has voted not to proceed with the HDV without even offering us the opportunity to discuss face to face, undoing four years of planning in just a matter of weeks”.

Mark Smulian