Agenda item

Report of the Corporate Director of Finance and Resources (S151 Officer). To be presented by the Cabinet Member for Housing & Planning (Deputy Leader).

DECLARATIONS OF INTEREST FOR THIS ITEM:

None

RESOLVED:

That Cabinet:

1. Approved the addition of the former Stamford Hill Primary School site to the Council’s Housing Delivery Programme.
   
   
2. Noted that approval of pre-contract budgets was within the delegated authority of the Delivery Director. The Pre-Contract Budget included all costs to take the project up to the award of a construction contract at Gateway 3.

Reasons for Decision

Delivering a new generation of genuinely affordable Council homes was an important corporate priority for Haringey Council. The Borough had committed to an ambitious Council home-building programme that would deliver 3,000 new homes by 2031. This was in direct response to the national housing crisis, which had left thousands of households in Haringey in need of a genuinely affordable home.

The Council was already making great strides towards this target: as of August 2025, 797 council homes had been completed as part of this ambitious programme, with around two-thirds of these new homes welcoming tenants and their families during the current calendar year. This new housing was changing the lives of residents, providing households with affordable, warm, and secure homes in their community.

In addition, the needs-led programme provided further benefits to the Borough’s vulnerable residents and the wider community. Around 200 homes were “bespoke homes” co-designed with tenants with mobility or other welfare needs. These homes included adaptations designed to support tenants in their daily lives, for example, through the installation of height-adjustable worktops or specially designed bathrooms.

To help tackle the climate change emergency, homes were built to high sustainability standards, including green roofs, air source heat pumps, PV solar panels, and electric vehicle charging points. Wildlife planting, new trees, and landscaping were included as part of housing schemes. As part of the placemaking agenda, the programme delivered additional infrastructure benefits to the existing community, including a new GP health centre, playgrounds for local children, new walkways and public bridges, and commercial spaces for local businesses.

This track record of delivery represented an outstanding achievement for Haringey Council given the difficult economic climate for the construction industry over the past few years.

The addition of this site outlined in section 1 of this report provided an opportunity for the Borough to continue its progress towards its 3,000 new homes target and provide much-needed affordable housing to residents on the housing waiting list. It also allowed the Council to explore the provision of more “bespoke homes” for some of the most vulnerable residents and to consider potential community-wide improvements that would benefit existing residents as well as new residents who might move into the new homes.

Alternative Options Considered

Not including this site in the Council’s Housing Delivery Programme

This option was rejected because one of the Council’s top priorities was the delivery of a new era of council housebuilding. Excluding this site from the development programme would have undermined the Council’s capacity to deliver new Council homes.

Disposing of the site

This option was rejected because disposing of the site to a private developer could have reduced the number of affordable homes that could be built by the Council.