We are campaigning for:
1. A programme of rental guarantees as stimulus to kick start a new market in privately funded, purpose built, high quality private rental accommodation.
2. Simplification of standards to speed approvals and reduce costs, linked to improved consumer information in the form of clearer labelling.
London would be the place to pilot both of these initiatives because:
· London has uniquely effective coterminous governance of housing, planning and regeneration in the form of the GLA.
· It has the market and the values to tempt early adopters from the institutional investment community.
· Boris Johnson has the political persona to champion such a challenge (and uncanny resemblance to a previous champion of urban regeneration – see below!)
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A new generation City Challenge for Son of Tarzan?
Heseltine 1992
Boris 2012
The combined effect of foreign investment in London’s housing and the Bob Kerslake’s fiscal stimulus package (now coming to an end) has ensured an industry capable of delivery – though failure to replace the missing £4bn of public investment over coming years threatens this.
The opportunity is a new housing offer in terms of tenancy, service and built form that would be emblematic of the Zeitgeist – just as the Mansion Block era was born at Albert Hall Mansions with the Great Exhibition at Kensington Gore.
Why does a commercially sound idea need a political champion? Because the investment community needs to know what it’s getting into. Political leadership is required to create the context:
· High level and consistent political endorsement of well regulated private rent as a social good.
· Creating partnerships for disposal of public land on deferred or preferential terms.
· Challenging the industry to come forward with innovative operators like Fizzy Living.
· Setting entry conditions on price and service level.
· Brokering partnerships between politically aligned LAs, Entrepreneurial operators and Institutional investors.
· Reduceing costs through de-regulation of product, and reduced planning obligations.
· Endorse the concept of well managed, smaller and more adaptable accommodation – bookable space and added value services.
For similar and related reasons, London is the place to start with decent labelling of the housing product. Moreover, labelling is the place to start with de-regulation, because well informed consumers capable of making informed choices are a pre-requisite for the abandonment of swathes of meddling bureaucracy. Boris Badges identifying floor area and energy performance wherever homes are advertised would be the perfect antidote to Hobbit Homes!
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