Tackling the housing need in London

Caroline Pidgeon, Leader of the Lib Dems on the GLA

With the Greater London Authority (GLA) now directly responsible for a £1.6 billion development budget and over 600 hectares of public land, Lib Dem GLA member Caroline Pidgeon has been pushing the Mayor to:-

increase the supply of affordable housing and improve the quality of existing stock.

In addition, as a member of the Housing and Regeneration Committee, we have started an investigation looking into the private sector in London.  The Private Rented Sector (PRS) looks set to play an important role in housing our growing population, with one in four households now renting their home privately.  As the upward trend of house prices continues to put home ownership beyond the reach of many Londoners, the PRS will have to accommodate an increasingly diverse population. 

Caroline Pidgeon has questioned the Deputy Mayor for Housing Land and Property, Richard Blakeway about the need for a pilot housing project for private institutional investment in London.

Recognising the strength of rental demand in London, Sir Adrian Montague has just published his long-awaited review into the barriers to institutional investment in private rented homes, and called on the GLA and others to “demonstrate [their] commitment to making a success of private rented schemes on public land” by making a number of sites available to developers on the basis of a pre-determined volume of build-to-let space.

The land is there, much of it under the direct control of the GLA, but the Mayor must now show a greater willingness to use his budgets and unprecedented new powers if London is to build the new homes it so desperately needs.  .