THE developer in charge of turning a former hospital into houses could make nearly £30million.

Documents show the cost of developing St. Ann’s Hospital, in Tottenham, could make up to £29.5million.

Two-thirds of the St. Ann’s Hospital site are being sold for houses, but only 14 per cent of the housing will be affordable.

The Barnet, Enfield and Haringey Mental Health Trust (BEH), which is in charge of St. Ann’s, said it was necessary to sell the site in order to improve services.

Andrew Wright, director of strategic development at BEH, said: “Any private company has to make a profit, of course they will make a profit. There is no doubt anyone making private homes will make a profit.

“This is not selling a site to a private company, this is an asset being sold on behalf of the taxpayer. We have the worst inpatient health record in London, and there is no money for the wards.

“We want to sell the land that is not in use at the moment and reinvest, reinvest in new modern health services. The story is that if we don’t sell the land we will have the worst mental health records in the country.

“You wouldn’t want your relatives on these wards.”

Mr Wright also said that they had assessed how many houses could be sold as affordable on the land and that the proportion was reasonable.

He said most people were on their side, and that the profit made by the developer would be “irrelevant and separate”, and detracted from the promise of new mental health facilities.

“We’re not in the business of building homes, there isn’t the model to do it ourselves,” he said.

The St. Ann’s Hospital twitter account had earlier tweeted saying the report was “shocking”.

St. Ann’s Redevelopment Trust, which is attempting to buy the site to build a higher amount of affordable houses on behalf of the local community, said it was “shocked and not shocked” by the news.

Tony Wood of the Trust said: “If the community bid was the chosen one, then that money would not be used for profit, but would be used for rent and the cost of housing.

“I am shocked at the sheer numbers going to the developer, but I’m not shocked, because this is why house prices are so expensive in London.”