London Mayor’s Housing Promise Remains in Focus

20-Jun-2017

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Davis Miller is a regular contributor at many sites and mainly focuses on business and investment related topics.







April heralded the Mayor of London’s first official housing agreement, underscoring his continuing efforts in working towards fulfilling his promises on housing for the capital. After just five months, Mayor Sadiq Khan has dipped into the £3.15 billion Government funding he secured to help end London’s housing crisis.

The landmark agreement with L&Q Housingwill see 20,000 new homes constructed in London. It represents almost one quarter of 90,000 homes promised for the capital by 2021 and is a positive start to the Mayor delivering what Londoners need.

“In just five short months, London Mayor Sadiq Khan has delivered a positive start to fulfilling his housing promise,” said Knightsbridge estate agent, Plaza Estates.“By getting on with the job of securing more homes for Londoners, he’s showing his mayoral campaign wasn’t based on empty promises.”

Of course, it’s not just housing that needs to be delivered in the Capital, but homes that are genuinely affordable for hard working Londoners. The L&Q agreement has kept that detail very much in mind with some 60% of the new homes – or 12,000 – to be affordable homes. The entire investment required for the project is £8 billion, which will include a £400,000 investment from City Hall.

Renters Remain in the Mayor’s Sights, Too

While the agreement for 20,000 new homes will be good news for potential home-buyers, Sadiq Khan isn’t only focussed on the construction of residential property, as a way to help Londoners afford suitable housing in the city. He also confirmed that as of April,100,000 Londoners have access to the employers’ housing pledge.

The pledge was launched in January 2017. Drawn up in partnership with London First, it is being utilised by 23 employers based in the capital. A tenancy deposit scheme forms part of the overall plan, in which businesses who are part of it, agree to help their employees with housing costs. That means employers can offer staff a loan to pay for the, often sizeable deposits, required to secure a popular rental property.

“By taking a broad approach to housing in the capital, Mr. Khan is showing there are numerous ways to make city living a real option for many more people than it is currently,” said Robert Holmes. “Giving renters a viable way to access secure financial support is just one way to help. It’s also a big step in acknowledging the high level of reliance on rental properties, for London workers.”

In addition to giving support to London workers, offering help with deposits is an additional incentive for builders to construct more homes in London. That’s because it means their future projects will be populated by a mixture of people, including those city workers who access financial assistance.

More Still to Be Done

As positive and welcome as these two steps are to ending London’s hosing crisis, they can only represent that start of a long journey. The government has promised 1 million new homes across the country by 2020. And, even though the likelihood of that ambition being fulfilled isn’t great, even getting part of the way will benefit large numbers of Britons – Londoners included.

As well as the onus on getting more homes built, other areas are being studied too. UK MP for housing Gavin Barwell is active in his pursuit of alternative and innovative ideas to make London living work for more people. In addition to that, the UK’s construction industry has been identified as one that could benefit from some technological improvements to help speed up the home building process.

“Whenever there’s a major problem, a multi-pronged approach is often the best way to tackle it,” said Eden Harper. “By doing this, the Government and London mayor, along with the construction industry, should not only build the homes so desperately needed in the capital and the rest of the UK, but be in a stronger position, too.”

 

 


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