A Social Good

At present over 350,000 families are on the waiting lists for social housing in London, a back log that would take the capital’s social housing providers 20 years to clear at their present rate of letting.  Meanwhile, couples need deposits of £50,000 or more to buy the average home even if they can find a mortgage so typical first time buyers are now in their mid thirties. And all this is draining the bank of Mum and Dad just when pensions are under attack and the world is threatening a double-dip recession.

But London is much more than a property owning democracy, a paradigm which cannot alone meet the needs of its highly mobile, international, economically active and diverse population.  The Mayor is rightly concerned that an injection is required to stimulate London's intermediate housing needs and that the Government’s efforts at stimulus to date (principally the Private Rented Sector Initiative or PRSI) have had very modest impact.  Much more needs to be done at both political and practical levels.
 
Policy makers at all levels (national, London-wide, and local) need to start promoting the benefits of a well regulated consumer oriented private rented sector.  This will require a well articulated vision of a form of housing that is effectively configured to meet the challenge of London – the engine of the UK’s economy.  Far from the distant echoes of socially iniquitous Rachmanism this vision should convey the opportunity for a powerful social good.  Furthermore, London’s political leaders should convey the expectation that they want to stimulate development that will leave a mark on the city as a result – something on the scale of London’s nineteenth century revolution in Mansion Block living – so lastingly popular.