Is Ken Livingstone the best London Mayor for housing?
With just a few days to go until the London Mayoral elections on May 1, Show House news editor Marc Da-Silva takes a look at how the main candidates propose to overcome the capital’s housing deficit. Today we take a look at… Ken Livingstone (Labour)
Ken Livingstone, who on last week’s BBC1 show Question Time, likened his leadership approach to fruit and veg, “because it’s good for you and it helps save the environment because there are less cows.” This is all very well, but is his housing manifest healthy for the capital?
The exiting Mayor has pledged to stick to the policy that 50% of all new housing in London should be affordable, and has pledged to deliver 50,000 new affordable homes for Londoners in the next three years.
A record 13,500 affordable homes were constructed in the capital in 2007/8, more than double the 6,300 that were built the year before he became Mayor. In fact, the overall number of new homes constructed in London almost doubled from 17,000 a year to 33,000 last year, since Livingstone came into power in 2000.
Livingstone believes that Boris Johnson’s proposal to abolish the 50% policy and allow developers to build less, would represent a 'backward-looking view of London' and would mean big cuts in the number of new affordable homes to rent and to buy.
He said: “I am determined that the thousands of young people who cannot get on the property ladder will have the chance to own their own homes, unlike Boris Johnson whose policies would have the effect of concentrating housing in high priced and luxury development pricing housing out of the hands of ordinary Londoners.
"The most disastrous step would be to allow Boris Johnson to reverse the 50% policy that has led to so many more people getting the chance of a first home of their own.”
Livingstone also wants to increase the amount of larger affordable homes for families and to make shared ownership schemes more affordable through rent free shared ownership and allowing purchasers to buy smaller shares. He also committed to aiding those on higher incomes who still cannot afford to buy a home in London by promoting private sector and pension fund investment in new shared ownership schemes.
Ken Livingstone said: “Unlike Boris Johnson’s hotch-potch of gimmicks and impractical proposals which would reduce pressure for new cheaper homes to rent and buy, my manifesto is a comprehensive plan for meeting the housing needs and preferences of all Londoners as effectively as possible.”
Overall the manifesto sets out an 18 point plan covering all aspects of housing in London:
- Maintain the policy that 50% of all new homes should be affordable.
- Where necessary use the Mayor’s powers to prevent councils letting down their local communities by not insisting that developers provide enough affordable housing.
- Deliver 50,000 new affordable homes over the next three years.
- Achieve the target of reducing the number of homeless households in temporary accommodation by half by 2012.
- Ensure a much larger proportion of new affordable homes for rent are family sized (three bedrooms or more) to cut overcrowding.
- Achieve further reductions in the number of empty homes already the lowest since the 1970s.
- Substantially increase the proportion of family-sized shared ownership homes to help young families stay in London and get on the property ladder.
- Work with councils and the government to ensure shared ownership schemes are genuinely affordable through rent free shared ownership and allowing purchasers to acquire smaller shares.
- Help those on higher incomes who still cannot afford London house prices by promoting private sector and pension fund investment in new shared ownership schemes.
- Support development of the Community Land Trust model, in particular through the proposed pilot in Tower Hamlets.
- Require the highest standards of design in new homes and maintain the London Plan requirement that all new homes meet the ‘Lifetime Homes’ standard and at least 10 per cent are wheelchair accessible.
- Provide a comprehensive Green Homes Advice Service to help Londoners cut their carbon emissions and save money.
- Require all new homes receiving public subsidy to meet level 3 of the Code for Sustainable Homes and provide incentives to go further and faster to ensure there is a firm platform for moving to zero carbon by 2016.
- Develop and introduce a new Decent Environment standard for all social housing addressing carbon emission, energy efficiency, water use, internal sound insulation and recycling.
- Work with all social landlords to provide more personalised and neighbourhood-level employment support services to reduce the level of worklessness in social housing.
- Give social housing tenants much greater choice and mobility through working with councils to develop a London wide choice and mobility scheme, including a new register of accessible housing across London for disabled people.
- Work with councils to ensure they use their powers to enforce higher management standards in the private rented sector comprehensively and encourage them to provide landlord accreditation and tenancy deposit schemes.
- Work with pension funds and institutional investors to encourage them to invest in additional private rented housing, including considering how the planning system could encourage this.
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