There’s a short answer to the headline question. It is that none of them will. There are two big reasons for that: one, there’s only so much any mayor has the power to do about the city’s various housing problems; two, none of the front line candidates are willing to do everything they actually could do. Housing policy is difficult stuff, so let’s start with the thing London needs that is easiest to describe - and why none of the aspiring mayors are likely to provide it.
50,000 new homes every year
At present, Greater London contains over 8.6 million people who live in roughly 3.5 million households. By 2031, its population is expected to have risen to 10 million and the number of households to four million, resulting primarily from a birth rate that is much higher than the death rate - not from foreign immigration as many people fervently believe - and from a small reduction in average household size. Around 25,000 new residential properties have been completed in Greater London in each recent year. Most estimates say that needs to double.
That is why three of the candidates for mayor - Zac Goldsmith (Conservative), Sadiq Khan (Labour) and Caroline Pidgeon (Liberal Democrats) - have set their sights on increasing house-building in London to at 50,000 per annum or more. Fair enough. However, two authoritative recent studies are just the latest to conclude that this cannot happen unless a number of difficult and controversial measures are taken.
Reports by the London Housing Commission (for the centre-left Institute for Public Policy Research think tank) and a joint effort from Shelter and planning consultants Quod both conclude that hitting such a target would require, among other things, a lot of public “brownfield” land being redeveloped, reluctant suburban boroughs embracing rapid housing growth and building being permitted on green belt land that isn’t very green.
All of these are problematic. There’s been plenty of discussion about better exploiting the large Transport for London (TfL) property portfolio, but lots of London’s public land has housing estates on it and “regenerating” these - knocking them down and building greater numbers of properties in the same space - often meets understandable resident resistance and can cause more problems than it solves (more on this below). Mayors cannot force reluctant suburban boroughs to change their ways, even if so inclined. Green belt land is protected by a political taboo more powerful than even the 60 year-old legislation that still defines it, and Goldsmith, Khan, Pidgeon and Green Party candidate Sian Berry are pledged to keep things that way.
Even if some of the solutions above are embraced by the next mayor, progress would be slow. More tall buildings could be another part of the answer, but these can meet strong local opposition. More New Towns beyond the Greater London border? They might help, but mayors can’t make them happen. The weight of evidence therefore suggests that the chances of any mayor hitting a 50,000 a year target even by the end of a four year term are small.
Many more “affordable” homes
Every serious candidate agrees that the cost of buying and privately renting homes in London is far too high for far too many Londoners. Every candidate says they want that to change. Each has a different set of plans for doing so.
Pidgeon promises to create a City Hall-owned house-building company (along the lines of the one set up in Labour-run Southwark) to deliver 50,000 mayoral equivalents of council homes and to continue levying the mayor’s Olympic precept - a council tax add-on that helped fund the 2012 Games - which she says would allow her to eventually borrow up to £2bn towards funding a further 150,000 new homes of various kinds, including “affordable” dwellings aimed at first time buyers. It’s an interventionist approach which Pidgeon says reflects her loss of confidence in the private sector to deliver.
Why hasn’t Khan adopted a similar policy within his proposed Homes For Londoners unit in City Hall? My guess is that he has his political reasons for not doing so. Setting up a mayoral housing company could cut across the plans of Labour and other boroughs to pool land and resources and set up their own companies in order to make the best of the bad new situation created by the government’s Housing Bill - plans that have been being explored in consultation with the Greater London Authority for some time. As an outsider in the race to run a city where only one borough out of 32 is Lib Dem-controlled, Pidgeon doesn’t have to worry about such things.
Khan makes a three-part offer on what he calls “genuinely affordable homes,” contrasting these with the government’s “affordable rent” tenure and discounted starter homes: one, supporting housing associations and councils in building homes for social rent (that’s where those borough-owned companies might come in); two, using his planning powers to usher in a new private rent tenure he calls the London Living Rent, where levels would be linked to average local wages; three, to maximise the quantity and minimise the price of shared ownership homes built on public land, especially TfL property in Outer London areas which tend to be cheaper.
His manifesto reiterates a “target of half of all the new homes that are built across London being genuinely affordable to rent or buy,” saying that some Labour boroughs have achieved this. Private developers, unsurprisingly, have been sceptical, others have pointed out that Ken Livingstone couldn’t make his “50% rule” stick. Goldsmith says the stricture would choke off supply: “50% of nothing is nothing.”
Is Khan aiming too high? There is a view in the world of housing economics, one that influences Khan’s policy, that taking a hard line on affordability exerts downward pressure on the price of land - an expensive component of any new development. In other words, if developers know they will have to factor in 50% they will put landowners in a position where they either drop their prices or can’t sell. Thus, the theory goes, a virtuous circle is produced with cheaper housing the result.
Goldsmith’s opposite view is spelled out in his housing manifesto: “I will reject indiscriminate affordability targets that would make it harder to build and ultimately drive up the cost of housing.” Therein lies a classic Labour-Conservative difference between the two front runners. Another is the emphasis each places on different parts of the “affordable” housing spectrum. Where Khan gives equal billing to his three-part offer, Goldsmith, true to Tory tradition, devotes a full section of his housing manifesto to helping “Londoners on average salaries get the keys to their first home.”
He promises a “mayor’s mortgage” to help more Londoners buy properties “off plan” and says he will amend the London Plan “to guarantee more homes are set aside for those Londoners on average salaries who are being priced out of London.” His campaign has assured me that this foreground billing of the “intermediate” market does not mean that no new social rent homes would be built by a Mayor Goldsmith, although he makes the point, as Tories often do, that nearly a quarter of London housing is for social rent - and more than 40% in some boroughs - whereas only 2% is the intermediate form of “affordable,” aimed at low and middle income households who will never qualify for social rented homes. For this reason, he would amend the London Plan “explicitly requite local councils to support mixed income neighbourhoods.” Which leads us nicely on to...
What should be the future of estates?
Council estate “regeneration” - or “rebuilding” or “renewal” - has triggered some of the most fraught and highly-publicised housing battles in London in recent years in Labour and Conservative boroughs alike. Large, stalled ones in particular have demonstrated vividly how badly they can go wrong, leaving residents stranded on building sites or “decanted” for the long term, never to return. There is persuasive evidence that knocking down so-called “sink estates” can have more drawbacks than advantages and that the benefits of doing so in order to create “mixed communities” are elusive.
On the other hand, many post-war estates are poorly built and at low densities. There is always a range of views about estate regeneration plans among the residents they effect, but only those opposed to them secure media attention. Campaigners for defending all estates just as they are need to develop their case to explain, for example: how cash-strapped boroughs are to find the money to maintain those that are in poor condition; which other estates (and tenants) in those boroughs should have fewer resources as a consequence of large sums being spent on those in bad shape; and what alternative plan they have for housing the thousands of households on borough housing waiting lists often stuck in overcrowded conditions and in temporary accommodation - the people in the greatest housing need of all.
It’s an incredibly difficult issue. What is the right thing to do? The Greens are strongly opposed to demolitions and favour instead empowering estate residents to do their own regenerations their own way. Khan and a key housing policy adviser have advocated increasing estates’ density using “in-fill” as much as possible, rather than demolition. In his manifesto, he’s said he’s opposed to “estate regeneration” except:
Where there is resident support, based on full and transparent consultation, and that demolition is only permitted where it does not result in a loss of social housing or where all other options have been exhausted, with full rights for displaced tenants and a fair deal for leaseholders.
What about Goldsmith? In sharp contrast to Khan he has expressed enthusiasm for knocking down what he’s called “ugly estates” - even describing doing so as an “ethical obligation” - and replacing them with traditional London terraces and mansion blocks. However, his housing manifesto includes a “residents’ development guarantee,” which goes into substantial and quite stringent detail (see pages 12 and 13):
It states that redevelopment should only happen “where a majority of local residents support the proposed plans,” saying that “existing residents must be fully involved at the very start of, and throughout, the redevelopment process,” that those residents should only move once to an “equivalent-sized property” at the same rent level and that any new council homes should be exempt from the government’s plan to force the sale of high value council homes to fund extending right-to-buy. Goldsmith’s campaign has told me that by “local residents” he means only residents of estate and others who own property on them, not other people living nearby and that it will be for boroughs to satisfy him that majority consent has been secured.
Put that next to what’s in Khan’s manifesto and the difference between the two looks far less marked. Is it an attempt by Goldsmith to neutralise opposition, an expression of his localist beliefs or a bit of both? Goldsmith is a big admirer of Create Streets, the pressure group which campaigns for the restoration of traditional London housing and street design, arguing that it is popular, better for you and can stack up financially. They put a lot of emphasis on resident involvement, as their recent document on “direct planning” shows. But I could name at least one Tory housing chief who will be wondering just how much estate redevelopment would actually go ahead under a Mayor Goldsmith if such a residents’ guarantee were applied.
As for Khan, he will surely have been listening to Labour-run boroughs with high quantities of low grade housing stock, massive waiting lists for social and other affordable homes and big worries that the Housing Bill will further curtail their ability to shorten them. Their plea to him will have been “don’t tie our hands too tightly,” and if Khan is to work productively with them as mayor he won’t want to be at war with them. His visit in January to Camden’s modernist Maiden Lane estate regeneration, through which the borough is funding additional affordable homes on the site by building others there for market sale, hints at what he might look kindly on.
Goldsmith, I gather, is less enthusiastic about that scheme: there’s a big tower block and the architecture isn’t to his or, he would contend, Londoners’ taste. But, nothwithstanding their manifesto convergence, the most basic difference between the pair still looks to be that Goldsmith - like the Blairite Lord Adonis, who has clearly inspired him - is at heart a champion of estate redevelopment, while Khan and his policy advisers are sceptics and would be looking for high additional “affordable” percentages in order to be convinced that the gains of major redevelopment work outweigh the losses. How things would work out in practice under either candidate is harder to pin down. Take your pick.
Better private renting
Many London renters will be hoping for help from the next mayor, but mayors have limited muscle in this area. There isn’t going to be “rent control,” which lots of evidence suggests would be a mixed blessing in London anyway - mayors cannot introduce it and there’s precisely no chance of the present government bestowing the power to do so. Khan’s London Living Rent idea is for a PRS tenure with a regulated rate, but such properties are by definition yet to be built. He also pledges to set up a London-wide not-for-profit mayoral lettings agency “for good landlords” as an alternative to the commercial ones, to promote landlord licensing with a view to improving standards and to name and shame “rogue” landlords.
How does this compare with Goldsmith? The Conservative’s manifesto points out that the government’s Housing Bill contains measures against bad landlords, which he would would “widely advertise” once they become law. He says he’d ask the government for powers to strengthen Boris Johnson’s London Rental Standard, making it mandatory for lettings agents to comply with it and would “target” high fees charged to tenants.
He’d want landlords signed to the Standard to have to offer tenancies of between three and five years with future rent increases agreed at the start of the contract “to give tenants certainty.” Although he again eschews specific targets, he says he’d “guarantee that a significant proportion of new homes are for rent” including on public sector land and would support the building of more bespoke rental homes (including at discounted rates) both through the London Plan and by pooling borough land and funding.
Pidgeon would like all London landlords registered, more support for councils to enforce standards and tighter controls on letting agent fees. Like Goldsmith, she wants to promote three-to-five year tenant contracts. There’s an original offer to renters from the Greens, whose candidate Sian Berry is among their ranks. They would raise a mayoral precept to fund a London Renters Union, helping groups of renters across London to give tenants advice, lobby local councils over bad landlords and so on.
Londoners first?
The capital may be an internationalist city but there’s a strong streak of Londonism among the mayoral candidates where housing is concerned. Ukip’s Peter Whittle who, like Berry and Pidgeon, is also running for the London Assembly, unsurprisingly insists that “uncontrolled immigration” is the primary reason for housing shortages all over the country. As mayor, he would want to “prioritise Londoners” when marketing or allocating homes built on GLA (and presumably TfL) land and for all social housing, which he would like to see “a new golden age” of.
Goldsmith and Khan want to prioritise Londoners too. Goldsmith writes: “I will ensure that all homes built on TfL are offered first to Londoners - people who have lived or worked in London for at least three years and do not already own a home.” Khan says that his “genuinely affordable homes” would include “homes to buy where we can give Londoners first dibs - building on brownfield public land and using the mayor’s planning powers to their fullest extent.” This would include requiring boroughs to contractually oblige developers to advertise new homes locally only for a period before marketing them overseas.
All these promises are being made against the backdrop of the popular belief that rich foreign investors are the biggest cause of London’s escalating house prices and rents and that their influence is forcing Londoners out of town. The reality is far less neat and tidy: the inflationary influence of overseas investors is felt in only limited areas of the capital, fewer leave their properties empty than is often alleged, Londoners have been moving, often eagerly, from Inner to Outer London and beyond in search of larger, cheaper homes and better quality of life in greater numbers than they’ve moved in from elsewhere in the UK for many, many decades and, hard though it is for some to accept, hot money from abroad sunk into “off plan” luxury flats indirectly pays for many of the lower cost homes built in the city’s “high value” areas - like or not, those homes wouldn’t be there otherwise.
Politicians, eh? The really big problems are different - tangles of factors to do with availability of land, access to finance and some pretty painful choices between competing desirable priorities. The best the next London mayor can hope to do, whoever it may be, will be to tweak some of the variables in the hugely complex funding, legal and planning equation that generates new London homes. The scope for imposing favoured solutions and delivering preferred outcomes will be pretty limited. Some of those may entail placing one desirable objective above another. And none of them will produce 50,000 new homes a year.
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