In a circular dated 26th September delivered to Dolphin Square tenants and neighbours, Westbrook attempt to defend the lack of affordable housing in their development scheme.
They say "we have provided a Financial Viability Assessment for the Scheme which both Westminster City Council and the Greater London Authority (GLA) are scrutinising with independent expert advice. The assessment will inform the maximum reasonable affordable housing solution that can be provided at Dolphin Square recognising the challenges faced by DSL (Dolphin Square Limited) as it undertakes the refurbishment of the whole of the existing estate."
It is a matter of public record that Westbrook bought the head and under-lease of Dolphin Square from Westminster City Council for a total of £180 million in 2005. It is also on public record that they bought the freehold from Friends Life after protracted enfranchisement proceedings for the sum of £190 million in 2015. They claim to have spent around £40 million on improvements during their ownership. Accordingly, their total purchase cost would amount to around £400 million .
Therefore, it is something of a mystery that Land Registry records show that the applicant in the current planning application, The Dolphin Square Estate Limited, a Jersey company first registered in 2015, purchased the freehold for a figure of £850 million. If this figure is being used as the base purchase figure in the Financial Viability Assessment rather than the actual historic purchase prices, the costs of the development will be greatly increased and the profit available for the provision of affordable housing greatly reduced.
The truth of the matter may be better understood by reading a trade press interview that Mark Donnor, managing principal of Westbrook, gave earlier this year:-
https://www.bisnow.com/london/news/multifamily/inside-westbrooks-400m-dolphin-square-revamp-82231
Donnor confirms the figures above and goes on to confirm the revaluation of the property by £450 million. He also gives the clear impression to the interviewer that Westbrook expect to make a further £400 million profit on the development and that they currently enjoy rental income of £35 million a year from the investment which is servicing a £507 million mortgage from M&G Group and MetLife. Surely the income alone should be enough to carry out any necessary refurbishment to Dolphin Square without the massive profit that has already been made and the claimed need for redevelopment to fund refurbishment.
Westminster City Council refuses to divulge Financial Viability Assessments by developers and insists on keeping them confidential. The Mayor's Office has called for these figures to be made public. It is surely in the public interest that such figures should be made public and open to question by interested parties. Please share this petition with your friends and neighbours on social media and by email and continue to give us your support.