Westminster's planning department has now disclosed an offer made by Westbrook to provide 57 "affordable" homes within their proposed development of Dolphin Square.

On closer inspection, only 40% of the flats will be truly affordable and available to tenants nominated by the council. According to the planners, there will be 16 two-bed and three bed flats for "social" housing and a further seven one-bed flats. The remaining 34 flats will all be one-beds and will be "intermediate" flats available for joint tenants with an income of more than £65,000 a year. All of the flats will be owned and managed by Westbrook.

The planners justify the offer on the basis that it is part of a new National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF) which came into effect in the summer. 

Westminster city council has been promoting "intermediate" housing as any housing which is rented out at 20% below the current market rent. Since Westminster rents are among the highest in the country, with one-bed flats typically renting at more than £400 a week, there will be no truly affordable housing within the "intermediate" offer.

Westbrook claims that their existing housing offer within Dolphin Square is already "intermediate" mainly because rents are kept lower than other parts of the city by the large offer of private flats within Pimlico due to the proximity of Dolphin Square and the huge Churchill Gardens estate, the freehold of which is still owned by the council, but of which more than 50% of former council homes are privately owned. It is this rent differential which has caused the explosion in short-term letting in the area.

The provision of 57 "affordable" homes at Dolphin Square will not compensate for the damage that the proposed development will do to the local community and the inevitable steep rise in short-term letting caused by the massive expansion of the existing Dolphin House hotel if consent is given. It cannot justify the loss of long-term housing which should be maintained within Dolphin Square's current 1,250 flats.

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