Housing is not just a numbers game – there is so much more to solving this crisis

Is Boris Johnson the only man in Britain who thinks £2800 per month in rent is affordable to ordinary people? If his decision to approve plans to turn the sizeable Mount Pleasant site in Islington into yet another mass of luxury tower blocks is anything to go by then yes, he quite possibly is.

In fact, throughout his mayoralty Boris has given two fingers to the concept of affordability in London. In making the decision last year to allow affordable rents to be charged up to 80% of market value, he undermined the entire purpose of affordable housing which is, of course, that is affordable.

The outcome of that goalpost-moving exercise is a debate around housing that is a farce: every Londoner knows that swathes of housing currently classed as ‘affordable’ is really nothing of the sort. The 80 per cent rule means that even the few ‘affordable’ homes that Johnson did allow to be included in the Mount Pleasant plans will be completely out of the reach of anyone except those earning several times the average London wage. In what world does Boris think a teacher or a nurse can afford a £2800 rent, let alone the 640,000 Londoners in low-paid jobs?

As CWU General Secretary Billy Hayes rightly put it, “it’s an absolute travesty that postmen and women working just next door will be priced out” of Mount Pleasant, when it is exactly these type of Londoners that have the most trouble getting on the property ladder. This is precisely what the local community and local councillors had been telling Boris but, showing a stunning level of disinterest and his usual attention to detail, he took just 20 minutes to wave the plans through.

What the Mount Pleasant decision lays bare is the Tory Mayor’s commitment to those most comfortable with the status quo. The only people that will benefit from these plans are Royal Mail shareholders, buy-to-let investors and those at the top of the income scale who can afford these plush apartments.

This needs to change. If we are to solve the housing crisis in the UK, we need to admit it isn’t only about supply and demand but also values and priorities. Housing is not just a numbers game. The fact that cranes now dominate the London skyline isn’t an achievement in itself – we need to ensure the homes they are building tackle the challenges of overcrowding, poor quality housing and increasing unaffordability.

That means building the right kind of housing: not more tower blocks but decent family homes. We must challenge the misconception that higher buildings mean more homes. Actually, the densest part of London isn’t the tower blocks of Tottenham or Peckham but the leafy terraced streets of Pimlico.

I spent much of my childhood on the Broadwater Farm estate in Tottenham. I know what damage poor housing design, and the thin walls, constant damp, bleak concrete and gloomy corridors that it creates, can do to people’s lives. It means strains placed on family relationships, health problems, nowhere for children to do their homework. Poor housing is one of the biggest ways in which inequality is perpetuated across the UK. That gives us yet another incentive to ensure that we build decent homes.

So yes, we need to take tough decisions on where we can build by re-examining the 70-year-old greenbelt classifications, because brownfield land simply won’t deliver the homes we need. And yes, council planning departments need more resources and smaller developers need better access to information and finance. But this is all immaterial unless the homes we build are the right kind: well-designed, liveable and affordable.

Labour have been leading the fight across the UK on housing and we have rightly committed to building 200,000 homes a year by 2020. Using the imminent Lyons Report as our foundation, we now need to spell out a comprehensive plan for housing that is not just about building more homes but about building the right type.

We should redefine ‘affordable’ to mean a maximum of 60% of market rates, as I proposed in the housing report I published last month. I also advocate going further and pegging affordability to average local incomes to protect local residents and ensure they don’t get priced out, breaking up communities and forcing out those who can’t keep up with the increase in living costs.

We also need rent regulation – not the clunky and ill-designed rent controls of decades ago but limits on the amount by which landlords can increase rents over a set period and landlord registers to ensure that bad apples are rooted out and residents feel protected.

Eight years of Boris has meant that people I talk to feel a weary resignation about the power of landlords and property owners in relation to renters – but it doesn’t have to be this way. Look at New York, where residents have a powerful lobby in state government and organisations representing their interests. In the UK, groups like Generation Rent, who represent a whole generation of young people getting a raw deal on housing, must be listened to and engaged in the debate.

Labour should be radical in our vision for a new generation of good quality, affordable homes. And we should never shy away from highlighting the huge failures of Boris and the Tory-led government on building new homes. People are calling out for a bold, ambitious and coherent vision on housing. We are the only party that can deliver it.