Haringey Labour News from your Haringey Labour Team
Cranwood Nursing Home is likely to become the first site for Haringey’s new council house building program.
The Labour council’s cabinet voted to approve the purchase of two houses behind the disused nursing home in Muswell Hill, after a ten-minute private session at Wood Green Civic Centre.
The plot is currently the only area designated for new council houses in the West of Haringey. Cabinet papers show initial work has already been done at the site, but that it needs further investigation, due diligence and more feasibility work.
Labour Councillor Emine Ibrahim, the cabinet member for housing and estate renewal, told the meeting that the purchase was ‘part of a feasibility study into the site, and to start work on the Cranwood site in Muswell Hill.’
She went on to highlight the ‘severe shortage of social housing in the borough, particularly in the West’ and claimed that the scheme would ‘help us deliver more housing for people who need it.’
The nursing home was closed by Haringey in 2012 as part of a bid to cut £87 million from their budget, and was set to be part of the council’s assets sale to Lendlease as part of the Haringey Development Vehicle (HDV).
In July the cabinet voted to set-up its own council house building programme after leader Joseph Ejiofor’s new administration scrapped the HDV.