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The Guardian - UK
The Guardian - UK
National
Jessica Murray Midlands correspondent

Birmingham council to sell off athletes’ village homes at more than £300m loss

Birmingham Ayoub Khan Birmingham City Council
New build flats with gardens and play areas.
The Perry Barr estate, described by local people as a ghost town, was not completed in time for the Games, due to Covid. Photograph: Stop Press Media/Alamy

Hundreds of empty homes in Birmingham, originally designed as an athletes’ village for the Commonwealth Games, will be sold by the council at a loss of more than £300m to the taxpayer.

Ayoub Khan, the independent MP for Perry Barr where the apartments are located, said it was an “absolute scandal” that the Labour-led authority had agreed last week to sell more than 700 homes to a private company in a deal forecast to result in a multimillion-pound loss.

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