Building Homes 'Won’t Solve London’s Housing Crisis | |||
Increased housing supply alone will not help say Green party
The Mayor should consider housing policies other than supply, including rent controls and restrictions on overseas investors, a report from Darren Johnson suggests. The report provides evidence that housing supply alone is unlikely to reverse the rising cost of housing in London, and that it will do little to help people in the next few years. Therefore the Mayor should consider other more radical changes to housing policy. Key findings for London in the report include:
Darren Johnson commented, “We obviously need to build more homes to meet the needs of a growing population. But the Mayor cannot continue to pin all his hopes on private developers building more homes to meet the demands of Londoners, buy-to-let landlords, second home owners and overseas investors. The consequences of this failed approach will be many more years of rising rents, more people priced out of home ownership and a dwindling stock of genuinely affordable housing. “The Mayor could pick from a rich list of solutions developed by academics, journalists and think tanks, putting them into his housing strategy and pushing the Government to adopt them. He should also drop his simplistic opposition to rent controls and see what we could learn from other countries in Europe such as Ireland, France and Germany.”
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