The London mayoral candidates have backed proposals for a devolution deal to London from central government to tackle the housing crisis.
Speaking at an event on 7 March to announce the proposals from the London Housing Commission, Conservative candidate Zac Goldsmith, Labour candidate Sadiq Khan and Liberal Democrat candidate Caroline Pidgeon were united on a plan that would see the London mayor and boroughs double the number of houses built each year by 2020 in exchange for greater powers over planning and licensing.
“London does need to get a better deal from government. Our city generates huge wealth for this country and yet we hold onto just 7% of the taxes we raise,” said Goldsmith.
“It is the greatest city on earth but we have to go cap in hand to beg the chancellor for money to ensure we have the infrastructure, the housing we need and the policing we need. We need to keep a greater share of our tax take.”
As Goldsmith was addressing a 100-strong crowd at London’s Burlington House, W1, housing protestors were thumping at the doors outside.
Continuing through the noise of the vocal demonstrators, Goldsmith trumpeted a so-called stamp duty zone uplift system, which would see Transport for London pay for new transport links needed to unlock brownfield sites, with a portion of the revenue earned being reinvested in London.
However, he rejected the notion of setting an affordable homes quota.
“Set the tariff too low and communities feel they are being cheated. Set it too high and insist that 50% of all homes and developments are genuinely affordable and developments will become unviable. You will end up with 50% of nothing,” he said.
Meanwhile, Khan supported the notion of a dedicated London housing team at City Hall that would be a collaborative network of housing associations, private developers, councils and investors with responsibility for delivering homes.
He said: “Beyond building new homes, we need new powers to improve the experience of Londoners in the private rented sector. While we build more homes we cannot stand by and consign a generation to a life of high rents and insecurity.”
Khan slammed the government’s Right to Buy initiative and the resulting “60,000 homes sold in London and £2.5bn in receipts lost for our city”.
Pidgeon was disappointed that there was not a separate use class for the build-to-rent sector among the London Housing Commission proposals.
She said: “The commission considered and rejected was the idea of establishing a new use class to support build-to-rent development. I have a different view, having openly called for a new use class for affordable housing, giving local authorities the ability to protect land for affordable housing. That means assessing the impact of development proposals on supply and the ability to better co-ordinate housing and planning functions.
“I pledge to create a new London housing property company at City Hall wholly owned by the GLA to kick–start this programme and to directly commission affordable homes.”
Hear what Robert Grundy, head of housing at Savills and Russell Pedley, director at Assael, have to say about the London Housing Commission proposals. Plus, Bill Davies, senior research fellow of the Institute for Public Policy Research, who wrote the report, and Lord Bob Kerslake, chairman of the London Housing Commission, explain what are the next steps for the proposals.
