More homes to be built in the heavily subsidised Primrose Bank area under the guise of PFI homes for sale but following on from the disastrous first phase of PFI housing at Primrose Bank that failed to sell a single house the homes will be absorbed into the social housing portfolio if they fail to sell. In February 2017, Primrose Bank developer Inspiral Developments Oldham (IDO) wrote to the Council formally relinquishing all of its interest in all the Gateways Oldham sites, on the basis that it believed it was not commercially viable to build out the remaining plots of land for private sale. Original developer Devco pulled out of the scheme on the very same basis back in 2013. As was the case with earlier phases at this development these new homes will have far more bedrooms than would be built on your average development, some eighty plus bedrooms for just eighteen new homes. Councillor Barbara Brownridge, stated: “Primrose Bank has been very successful after hitting a snag at the beginning because the type of housing that was being built didn’t actually meet the needs of the community who wanted to live there and that has been resolved” What she actually means is high fertility families requiring increased numbers of bedrooms within the Oldham area which is receiving the highest numbers of migrant families with large numbers of school aged children. In the 024 area with high rates of poverty, crime and housing subsidies the pre-development offers for new homes at Primrose Bank sees a six bedroom new-build house available at this site for just £200,000. The sheer hypocrisy of Oldham council to lecture the people on green economics while exponentially increasing the population size of the areas responsible for infrastructure pressures and the vast majority of Oldham’s benefit bill and the UK fourth highest rates of tax credit payments is scandalous. Planting vegetable gardens across the road at Alexandra Park really is the most ludicrous way to show you have a sustainable food chain when you also build six bedroom houses in the same overpopulated area. One six bedroom house with an absolute minimum seven residents consuming the recommended five portions of fruit and vegetables each per day would require 12,775 portions a year. To demonstrate the demographic change inflicted by the Labour council we have made charts showing the change in the central areas of Oldham for the numbers of families with four children and five or more children claiming housing benefits. Housing benefit statistics are being used to demonstrate the changes in population composition. The four areas of Oldham that have the highest increase in housing benefit claims compared to 2011 are all PFI housing areas and the 024 area which includes Primrose Bank tops the list, high levels of benefit claimants inevitably has an effect on house prices in these areas. March 2013 was chosen as the first comparison month because it is the first official dataset available which lists numbers of children.
Housing benefit claim changes over time for families with 5 or more children
Housing benefit claim changes over time for families with 4 children
ONS mid 2016 population projections
Tax credits 2015 to 2016
Oldham town centre MSOA’s