Walthamstow Village, USA News (London, UK): Described as one of the trendiest places to live in London, Walthamstow Village is known for being home to creative young professionals looking for a quiet neighbourhood to start a family. While once a working-class area, the borough transformed into a trendy and affluent spot with house prices surging over the last decade as couples moved out of inner London. Houses on sought-after streets can now go for up to £1.5m. But these million pound homes sit in low council tax bands, based on what the property would have been valued at in the early 1990s. It means that property millionaires living in the area will be among those to receive £100 payments under a new scheme from the Government announced this week to help cover the cost of rising energy bills next year.
Walthamstow residents had mixed views when The i Paper visited on Friday, with some defending the scheme and others insisting it should have been better targeted to those most in need. Ellie Stone, 46, an independent theatre producer, thinks the Government providing non-means tested support is obviously ridiculous. She lives with her husband, who works in mental health support, in the picturesque area of Walthamstow Village. Every house on her street is rated band D or below for council tax, and one home up for sale is currently listed on Rightmove for £1.5m. To qualify for a mortgage for this amount, with monthly repayments likely to exceed £7,000, a buyer would need to be on a salary of around £230,000 to £300,000.
Stone says she and her husband were in a fortunate financial position to be able to buy in the area two years ago, and prices have increased even more since then. Nick Wilkinson, an IT manager in his forties, lives on the same road. He too thinks the Chancellor’s free cash payment was a blunt instrument, applying too broad a brush stroke for energy bill help. He noted that he and his neighbors do not need the assistance. Meanwhile, many in the area will need help. Like many other London boroughs, Waltham Forest, where Walthamstow Village is located, has pockets of both poor and extremely wealthy areas. The average house price in the borough is £532,000 below the London average of £554,000 but above the UK average of £273,000.
While payments will go to wealthier individuals who may need the money less but are living in properties assessed long ago, there will also be long-time residents of these properties who are living on low incomes despite the increasing value of their homes. Although some house prices are high, the borough has one of the lowest average yearly salaries in London at £47,907, which is below the outer London rate of £53,937 though above the UK average of £42,926. The majority of the total £2.6bn funding allocated to the energy payments scheme is expected to go to those who need it most, including 83 per cent of fuel-stressed households and 88 per cent of the lowest-income households. Stella Creasy, the MP for Walthamstow, said that 98 per cent of her constituents would be eligible for the scheme.
