Bonus for Dolphin Square tenants

TENANTS at one of London's best-known residential blocks could be in line for windfalls of up to £120,000.

The windfalls would be offered to unregulated tenants of Dolphin Square if a member of the Cadbury dynasty is successful in his attempt to buy the block.

Although they have no legal right to buy, if the bid led by Justin Cadbury succeeds, all Dolphin Square tenants are promised discounts of between £30,000 and £120,000 on the open market values as well as 100%mortgages from a major building society.

Those who do not wish to buy will get the money as a cash inducement to leave the building.

The future of Dolphin Square has been in limbo for several years. Its head leaseholder, Westminster-council, has been unable to reach any agreement with the Dolphin Square Trust, to which it relinquished control in the Sixties.

The Cadbury bid, said to be worth a total of £200m to the council, the trust and the tenants, replaces a failed bid last year by Allied Commercial.

When it was built in 1937, the Dolphin Square complex was, with its 1,200 flats, the biggest in Europe.