Growing Pains

For many low to middle earners in London, owning their own home is an increasingly distant dream.  For those stuck on social housing waiting lists, temporary accommodation and over-crowding are a daily reality, detracting from their life chances and quality of life.  London has more households in temporary accommodation and longer council waiting lists than any other region. In the last 20 years the number of households in London has grown by 500,000 but only 300,000 new homes have been built.

The number of households in London is set to grow by 41,000 per year.  Unless we build more houses (we currently have a high of about 30,000 per year), London’s housing crisis will grow. Overcrowding, waiting lists and temporary accommodation problems will get worse and even Londoners on above average incomes will find it harder to get a foot on the housing ladder. 

Centre for London will investigate the key challenges and directions for London’s housing policy. We will consider how London’s authorities can balance the competing aims of housing policy in a time of public spending cuts, and how we can align the incentives of planners, developers, and local communities more effectively. These insights will be used to propose new models for the flexible delivery of housing that allow for a new generation of social housing, a quality offering from the private rented sector, and the opportunity for more of London to achieve home ownership.

For more information contact Ben Rogers, Director of Centre for London.