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Labour’s London Borough’s are responding to the housing crisis – we must ensure that others do the same

July 12, 2012 5:33 pm

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It’s widely acknowledged that London is in the middle of a housing crisis. An increasing population and a lack of new development means we have a sizable gap between those needing to find a home and those that are available.

In the first quarter of this year, just over 3,000 homes of all types were started in London, a 50% reduction from the same quarter in 2007. In the same period, 3,760 households were accepted as homeless in the capital. When the numbers of homeless households out strips the number of homes being built, you know we have a very serious problem.

It is in this context that we expect the London Mayor to make good his election promise to deliver 55,000 new affordable homes by 2015. In my new role on the Homes for London board, I will be working hard to ensure that this is achieved. The cost of not doing so is too great to contemplate.

Labour’s boroughs will no doubt be providing the vast majority of these. We are the ones most willing to build new homes. But many have rightly recognised that this is not enough to meet growing demand.

In my own borough of Lewisham, we’ve made the decision to build 250 new council funded homes over the next five years, and are consulting over the next few months about ways to build even more.

Southwark have pledged to build 1,000 new council homes by 2020, and Islington are making great efforts to find innovative ways of funding new homes that are genuinely affordable to local people.

It’s clear that the Tories in central and local government do not share our determination. Grant Shapps regularly talks of tackling the housing crisis, but his actions do not match his words. The kafkaesque ‘Affordable Rent’ does little to meet the needs of ordinary Londoners and his promise that homes sold using increased right to buy discounts will be replaced one for one is nonsensical.

The housing crisis we face is only going to worsen unless we act. It’s estimated that by 2033 London will have more than 700,000 additional households who will all be in need of a home.

Labour boroughs are showing that they are committed to providing the homes we desperately need and demonstrating how we really can make a difference. As we begin to look towards 2014, housing will no doubt form the platform for labour manifestos across the capital. Our record of delivery will hopefully convince the electorate to return more Labour councillors and allow us to build the homes that will meet the demands of future Londoners.

Sir Steve Bullock is Mayor of Lewisham and leads on housing for London Councils.

Related posts:

  1. Where the Government has failed, Labour Councils can play a part in tackling the UK’s housing crisis
  2. Social housing cuts: Driving the poor out of London
  3. No way to solve a housing crisis
  4. The middle class housing crisis
  5. Where is the affordable housing?
  • treborc

    It’s a great shame that a Labour government did not build council houses, but then  again with so many of Labours own councils trying to flog off council houses to anyone who would buy then, it’s to labour shame they decided to carry on selling council houses without replacing them, out of those 1000  homes now being build how many with be houses for sale or be sold, unless you end the selling without replacing the homes sold we will still be in the same mess in a few more years.

  • treborc

    Wales has sorted the housing problem, tents and sleeping bags will be given out to the homeless, and a patch of land out side of the village towns will be selected for a tent village.

  • Charles Lockwood

    This article appears to be focussing entirely on the supply side. What about the reasons for the demand?  Has any analysis been carried out on the reasons driving the increase in population in London? Can anything be done to reduce this, and thus lower  the pressure on housing demand?

  • Rob

    Sorry, but we are nowhere near resolving the housing crisis. Indeed, Labour, to its great shame in 13 years of government, made things worse.

    Building more houses is a small part of the solution. More social housing is necessary, but then we need to build homes that people want to live in rather than tiny shoe box “2″ bedroom flats and little else.

    As Charles Lockwood comments, we also need to ask some pretty fundamental questions about demand for housing. In London it is almost solely becuase of a rising population, much of which only arrived in the country in the last decade. High immigarion levels do not make the quality of life for existing citizens better. Building over the Green belt to accommodate more people, saying nothing about the fact that 1 in 4 babies born in London are born to mothers who come from outside the UK is not a vote winner.

    Most people can see that London and the SouthEast in particular have too many people. Building more crap houses on green fields is not a solution. 

  • http://www.affinitysutton.com/buy_or_rent_a_home/buy.aspx Kenn Kavagna

    There are some very harrowing statistics here. We need more affordable homes now as private rent prices increase and housing benefits are cut. I can only imagine how dire the affordable housing market will be in the next decade without any solid infrastructure to support the growing population. 

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