'More care' needed in fast council purchase of problematic B&B

The Royal Borough came under fire from neighbours, opposition councillors and a school last night (Thursday, August 26) for its handling of a plan for new temporary housing – a plan the cabinet opted to abandon.

Cedar Tree House in St Leonards Road was a privately owned B&B. In April 2021, the council took the ‘urgent decision’ to buy the 10-bedroom B&B for £1.2million.

It had already been using the B&B for homeless households.

The original plan was to make eight (later seven) self-contained flats for people in housing need.

To proceed would require an extra £490,000 investment to make sure the building is ‘fit for purpose’.

At a cabinet meeting on Thursday, the council made recommendations to abandon plans to refurbish.

Unusually, this went against officer recommendations. Instead, cabinet took the ‘not recommended’ option of selling the property on the open market.

Officers felt that to sell the property ‘in its current condition’, purchaser interest ‘may be limited’ and it would fetch about £800,000 – a loss of about £400,000.

But leader of the council Andrew Johnson highlighted that the extra expenditure on Cedar Tree House means that selling it had ‘the highest potential capital receipt’ for the authority.

‘Significant’ inflation, labour shortages and material costs were having ‘a huge impact’ on costs.

Cllr Donna Stimson (Con, St Mary’s) agreed that the ‘uncertainty of the planning process’ made investing further in Cedar Tree House too risky.

Nonetheless, the cabinet acknowledged that the borough ‘desperately needs’ temporary accommodation.

The challenge of providing it is one the council ‘will have to address, or the Government will do it for us,’ said Cllr Johnson.

Lead member for housing, Cllr Ross McWilliams, said more than 1,000 people are on the Borough’s housing register.

“It’s clear that many, many people are being priced out of the borough and we’re in a battle with the Government and other providers to secure affordable and temporary accommodation," he said. 

He added that the authority does not want to rely on temporary accommodation outside of the Borough which takes people outside of their support networks.

Cllr Helen Price (tBFI, Clewer & Dedworth East), asked if ‘more care’ should have been taken to make the decision to purchase Cedar Tree.

She suggested that the council should have been aware of the current issues affecting the construction industry.

“There’s a lesson to be learned here that such decisions should not be rushed,” she said.

Cllr Johnson replied that it was only more recently, since the purchase, that the inflation and costs ‘really started to bite’.

Meanwhile, members of the public expressed relief at the council’s change of direction, against officer recommendations to continue with plans to turn the building into temporary housing.

However, Rhian Thornton, headteacher at Upton House School (nearby to the site), nonetheless criticised the council for its level of communication with the school.

She said Upton House had ‘just wanted transparency’ and ‘received none’.

“RBWM [seemed] completely unaware that [Cedar Tree House] was in close proximity to a school,” she said.

She said that seven families in one property ‘really didn’t sound safe or sensible’ and felt the plans reflected a ‘lack of due diligence’ in safeguarding children.

Cllr Johnson said care would have been taken to make sure the building was housing people appropriately – possibly seeking to home those with additional complex needs elsewhere.

However, he added the Borough ‘cannot discriminate’ and could also never guarantee zero risk, no matter the tenant.

The current thinking is to sell the building as three flats for residential use.

A third option not taken by the cabinet was to reconfigure the building for affordable or key worker use.