On the 10th March we celebrated the formal opening of 2 Hopkins Street by the Mayor of London, Boris Johnson MP. This development is on the site of a former Metropolitan Police Hostel, in the heart of Soho, and offers new rented homes at a discount of up to 75{8ceeb99141714ae73a6dd9b699aaf1fe85c406b9e8b32f9f304c6f56403d8407} of market rate.
2 Hopkins Street, delivered in partnership with Barratt Homes, provides a total of 78 new homes, of which 65 are intermediate rent. They are aimed at people currently living, and working, within Westminster on modest to middle incomes, who are typically categorised as being key workers. Not only are there homes being offered at a discount of up to 75{8ceeb99141714ae73a6dd9b699aaf1fe85c406b9e8b32f9f304c6f56403d8407} off market rent for new 3 bed homes, there are also homes that are affordable for a couple earning the proposed national living wage.
The opening marks another significant milestone in meeting our target of delivering 1000 new homes by 2020. It also signifies our approach to ensuring that the housing we deliver benefits a broad range of people unable to qualify for social housing, but who are currently locked out of the rental market, especially within Central London. The new homes will not only benefit traditional key workers, such as nurses, firemen and policemen, but chefs, restaurateurs, actors, drivers, social workers, and all those who sustain the tourist industry within Westminster.
In order to ensure we are able to offer the new intermediate homes to low income households there are low, mid and upper rent bands to ensure that each new home is affordable to the circumstances of each prospective tenant. As well as the provision of the 78 new homes, the building also includes a ground floor retail space, a basement restaurant, as well as a communal roof terrace.
Chief Executive Jon Gooding comments:
We’re delighted that the Mayor of London was able to join us for the formal opening of our latest scheme 2 Hopkins Street and see at first hand our innovative approach to delivering genuinely affordable new homes. We all recognise that there is a growing disconnect between wages and market rent within Central London, and we at Dolphin think it is crucial that we continue to provide good quality rental accommodation for those workers who keep this city alive. It is for this reason that we’ve sought to ensure that we have new homes to rent at discounts of up to 75{8ceeb99141714ae73a6dd9b699aaf1fe85c406b9e8b32f9f304c6f56403d8407} of market rate, and ones that will be affordable for couples earning the new national living wage.
This scheme has been a fantastic opportunity for Dolphin Living to deliver genuinely affordable housing for working people, on a site formerly owned by the public sector, which had lain dormant for years, in one of London’s most high profile cultural and social quarters. 2 Hopkins Street provides a rare, but a fantastic, opportunity for those working in and around this area of Soho to reside here as well. This is an important milestone, and I hope you will share our enthusiasm in Dolphin’s involvement and ambition for the creation of more homes for the local community.
