PURCHASE of a £22.5m former defence housing estate is “too risky,” opposition councillors have said as the Royal Borough seeks to add more affordable homes to its stock.

The ruling Conservatives approved seeking to buy the freehold of Cavalry Crescent in Windsor and require the site’s owners Annington Property Limited to refurbish the 53 homes and build 10 affordable apartments, subject to planning permission.

The approval does not mean the council has automatically bought the site as its property company still needs to negotiate with Annington on the purchase.

At a full council meeting, opposition councillors felt there was not enough information for them to support the purchase attempt and felt it was “too risky” for the council to commit millions of pounds to this.

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Speaking at the meeting on Tuesday, September 27, Independent deputy leader Geoff Hill (Oldfield) said this, as well as the £20m shortfall on the Magnet site, will add another £60m to the council’s forecasted debt of £242m.

He said: “We shouldn’t really be doing this is my view. It’s too big of a capital risk given the capital risk we have already to the borough and the public purse.”

Other opposition councillors questioned whether refurbishing the homes rather than demolishing and rebuilding them is the right thing to do as the quality of the houses, some of which are boarded off, is “extremely poor”.

Council leader Andrew Johnson (Con: Hurley & Walthams) said they won’t be pursuing the purchase of the site until the council is “absolutely satisfied” the business case to buy it stacks up. If it doesn’t, the Royal Borough will walk away from negotiations.

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He also said the investment will make a return to the council and questioned “why on earth” opposition councillors did not call this item in to be further scrutinised if there were serious concerns surrounding this potential purchase.

Cllr Johnson explained the reason for the potential purchase: “We want to take a number of properties that are currently dilapidated, and we want to see them by the vendor brought up to a good standard and we want to rent them out to local people within Windsor who are struggling to afford open market rent.”

Cllr David Hilton (Con: Ascot & Sunninghill), lead member for finance, added this was a “good scheme” and the details of the potential purchase were available to all members in confidential reports.