The Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne and Mayor of London Boris Johnson recently announced plans to address the chronic shortage of housing stock in London. The plan contains a target of having 400,000 homes built in the greater London area by 2025. It was also announced that a new London Land Commission would be created to support the implementation of the housing plan.
The new commission will be tasked with overseeing the development of brownfield sites and undeveloped land intended for new housing projects, with a view to ensuring the plans objectives are met by 2025.
Furthermore, the Mayor and the Chancellor confirmed that nine new housing zones will be created in the boroughs of Greenwich, Bexley, Barking and Dagenham, Wandsworth, Harrow, Hounslow, Lewisham, Ealing and Haringey. The new housing zones will have preferential access to funding set aside to deliver affordable housing.
Commenting on the announcement, Boris Johnson said:
“We face massive demographic pressures in our city and it is absolutely vital that we build the high quality stock of housing we need to cope. We will not solve the problem without massively expanding the supply of housing and the plans confirmed today will help do that, which is fantastic for our city.”
However the proposals faced criticism from opposition politicians who said that the plans do not go far enough, as Labour party member Lord Adonis was quick to articulate.
“The big crisis facing London is housing and the new zones only scratch the surface,” Lord Adonis said. “The total number of new homes projected across all nine zones barely covers the mayor’s shortfall against his own target for last year alone.”
Despite the criticism, the new plans are likely to be well received by the general public as the lack of affordable housing in London has become a hot political topic in the run up to the general election.
Source: invezz.com