The end of rented social housing in London?


3:37 pm - November 22nd 2012

by Newswire    


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Proposed changes by the Mayor of London to the ‘London Plan’ signal the death of social rented and family housing in London, says a key Labour Assembly Member.

The Plan is the overarching planning document for London, which amongst other things, sets guidelines that determine how much social and family housing will be built in London.

Under the current funding regime social housing is not currently delivered by the Mayor, it is delivered by the 32 London Boroughs.

Labour’s London Assembly Planning spokesperson Nicky Gavron says that under the proposals being debated today, Boris is trying to stop developers and housing providers from building social rented housing.

He is attempting to do this by preventing social rented housing from being included in each of the 32 London Borough’s plans.

This runs counter to giving local communities more power over what happens in their area.

Nicky Gavron released a statement today saying: “Boris has already said he will give no money to build new social rented housing. It is disgraceful that he is trying to use the planning system to block local councils from finding ways of funding future social housing building.”

“This is a direct attack on localism and giving local communities the power to decide what happens in their area. The Mayor’s policies will hit low income families hard and dismantle mixed communities. He is exacerbating the runaway housing crisis that is driving up the cost of living in the capital.”

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Reader comments


1. Man on Clapham Omnibus

With all the poor being forced out of town how is one to retain staff?

2. Cherub

After all the noise and confusion about the Localism Act its being generally treated as a dead duck. It was a typical off-the-cuff wizard wheeze from the Tories and, just like the Police & Crime Commisioner elections it has failed. They’re very quiet about it, hoping nobody will notice, and Fat Eric has been kept out of the public eye.

If there is to be no new social housing in Greater London and if HB is to be capped then how does Boris think people will manage? Is there going to be a plan to get people to use the Boris Bus to ship the cleaners and carers in from cheaper areas?

3. jungle

This really highlights the lack of accountability for the Mayor in a city whose media is dominated by local papers which swoon at his every utterance. Most people in London know Boris issued a fiery condemnation of “social cleansing” in London and upset the government by doing that.

They probably will never be aware that through actions like this he’s doing more than almost anyone to ensure that same “social cleansing” (his term, not mine) takes place.

As for the unfortunate local authorities caught up in all this – well, it beats me how housing departments can avoid breaking the law for much longer. They have a binding legal obligation to house the homeless, yet they are being given legally binding orders and funding settlements from above which make it impossible to house the homeless.


Reactions: Twitter, blogs
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  9. Zak Zi

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  10. media man

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  11. Alex Braithwaite

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  20. Jane McCallion

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  21. Jane McCallion

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  22. Tabby Kinder

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  23. David Marsden

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  24. Susan Grey

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  25. London history

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  26. St John Street

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  27. john rennie

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  28. Philip Crick

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  29. Wullie Baxter

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  30. CityHallLabour

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  31. CityHallLabour

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  32. Michael Edwards

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  33. Joanne McCartney

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  34. CityHallLabour

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    http://t.co/dexkKNs6

  35. CityHallLabour

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  36. Simm

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  37. Simm

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    http://t.co/dexkKNs6

  38. Simm

    This week’s Top 10 #5 Labour’s @nickygavron asks if this is the end of social rented housing in London? via @libcon
    http://t.co/dexkKNs6





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