GMB said Barking and Dagenham has decided to exclude social housing element from new scheme 

Barking and Dagenham council has rejected claims by a major trade union that it has made no provision for social housing in a major new scheme which received planning approval last week.

Carey Jones Chapman Tolcher_Crown House Barking town centre for BeFirst

The GMB union accused the Labour-controlled east London council of “gentrification” after the local authority agreed to build two residential towers in the centre of Barking (pictured).

The union said it condemned the council’s approval last week of plans to demolish Crown House, a derelict office block, and build 396 homes through its own housing company Be First, 169 of which would be affordable and shared ownership homes.

Instead the council – and Be First – should have built homes for social rent, the GMB said.

But the council said it was “misleading” to suggest the new development would not contain social housing.

A spokesman for Barking and Dagenham said: “The proposal approved [last week] will provide 169 affordable homes: 56 shared ownership homes, 61 affordable rent homes and 52 low cost rented homes.

“Of the 169 properties, 30 per cent will be at 45 percent or 56 percent of local market rate – these are council rent levels.”

The council said it planned to build 2,000 affordable homes over the next four years, “however we are not working in a vacuum.

“We receive little government funding to build new homes and not able to keep and use all of proceeds of council housing sold under the Right to Buy,” the spokesman added.

Warren Kenny, the GMB’s regional secretary, said the council’s claim that it “was ‘building for the many and not the few’ was truly staggering”.

Kenney went on: “This is an example of gentrification and will put huge strain on many of the local services,” Kenny added.