Is time for a London Housing Company to build more co-op housing?  

Two anniversaries of events thirty years ago beg the question of the next Mayor of London – should the Greater London Authority and its Mayor be building social housing directly themselves?

1984 saw the birth of Coin Street Community Builders on London’s South Bank and the end of the Greater London Council’s own house building programme. Coin Street was formed out of a long campaign to stop developers building a huge hotel and office complex blocking off the community’s access to the River Thames.

Thirty years on, 300 units in four housing co-operatives form the heart of Oxo Tower and its environs, one of central London’s most spectacular places to live with its views over the Thames to St Paul’s and the City.

Few council houses have been built since, the consensus having been that housing was best left to the private sector and housing associations (co-op housing remains an even more marginal part of London’s, indeed Britain’s, housing mix – it lacks both champions at senior level, and the resources private developers and Councils can bring to the table). Boris backs that view and house prices have continued to rise far beyond the reach of the majority of people wanting to get on London’s property ladder, whilst rents have rocketed.

Coin Street’s housing co-operatives did not herald the start of a new era of community housing. Yet the need for community housing in London, affordable for local people living in the area they want to buy and rent in, is now desperate. Co-op housing helps create a sense of community with tenants involved in key decisions and able to shape a little more the area they live in. Some of the power that would otherwise sit with the private, Council or housing association landlord is instead placed in the hands of the very people who live in the homes.

It is one of the reasons why Labour’s pledge for a new house building programme is so needed. Co-op housing amounts to less than 1% of housing in the UK, a far lower figure than in mainland Europe. We need a new commitment from Labour to co-op housing – how about 20,000 a year by 2020, 10% of the new housing Labour has promised to be building by the end of the next government?

In London, the current Mayor’s housing strategy says the capital needs 42,000 new homes a year for the next 20 years just to meet current housing demand. Yet, at best, only half that figure is currently being built.

It is difficult to see the community housing demand being met by private developers and housing associations alone, although their role will be key.

The Mayor’s current disposal plans for use of TfL land don’t suggest large numbers of new social housing will be built by their partners on anything like the scale needed.

A number of local authorities from Sheffield, Thurrock, Enfield, Ealing and even Sutton, have set up Council-owned Companies to help them build new or lease existing properties to meet local housing need.

Perhaps it is time for the next Mayor of London to consider setting up a similar housing company to help attract finance into the building of more affordable high quality social housing, and in particular for co-op housing.

Co-op housing, of the quality Coin Street Community Builders have succeeded in establishing, is rare in London, not least because it has few champions and lacks the land and resources which Councils or private sector developers can source.

Given the huge loss of affordable homes in London, in part because of the failure to replace those sold under the Right to Buy, the next Mayor of London needs to consider setting up a London Housing Company to help build high quality social housing, particularly co-operative housing of the sort found on London’s South Bank.

Coin Street’s success in building affordable co-op housing in one of Britain’s most desirable locations with its spectacular views across the capital should be an inspiration to the next Mayor to use their own Housing Company to repeat that success many times over.

Gareth Thomas MP is Chair of the Co-operative Party