Richard Blakeway: Now we can build the housing the capital needs

The 1884 housing commission’s investigation into the scandalous state of Victorian slums led to the establishment of London government — and the birth of the garden suburb. It sowed the seeds for the biggest housing boom in the capital’s history in the 1930s. But since then London has gone backwards.

The failure to build by post-war governments means today London, together with Paris and New York, has too few homes that cost too much. Solving this isn’t easy without tough choices. Today the Mayor publishes a blueprint to take housebuilding to the level of the 1930s, double what has been built over the past 30 years.

London’s rapid population growth is bringing with it prosperity but also the need to build 42,000 quality homes a year. That’s the only sustainable way to address housing costs. We shouldn’t fool ourselves that banning foreign buyers or introducing rent controls are the solution.

It requires effort not just from government, lenders and the industry but Londoners themselves. New homes are to be welcomed and can be transformative, whether they are the 100,000 low-cost homes City Hall is building, the regeneration of tired post-war estates such as Kidbrooke in south-east London with a mix of apartments and terraced housing, or the creation of a 21st-century garden suburb bigger than Windsor on the site of a former power station at Barking.

Building more necessitates a housing market that is completely different from the one London had before 2008. Tokyo recognised this long ago with a mix of radical policies that include simpler planning with “zoning” and major investment.

So today the Mayor sets out plans to create up to 10 new Housing Zones, within London’s Opportunity Areas, proposing light-touch planning and tax incentives. This builds on City Hall’s work to release surplus land it owns, 300 acres so far, providing a £3 billion construction boost.

There will be a massive expansion of well-designed, low-cost new homes to buy. The goal is to help 250,000 Londoners on modest incomes over the next decade through the Mayor’s First Steps scheme, offering part-buy deposits as low as £5,000. Together with more discount rented housing, prioritised for low-paid working Londoners on council waiting lists, more than £1 billion will be committed — with more to come.

In addition to enticing smaller builders and supporting training schemes to grow our skilled workforce, building more will require innovative finance. London is already attracting pension funds from the US and Europe to fund purpose-built rented accommodation, setting a benchmark for quality and management. Now we will launch a £160 million Housing Bank to accelerate building the 200,000 homes that have consent but aren’t all being built. Councils should also be freed up to borrow to build.

But perhaps the boldest idea is to give London more power. So stamp duty, half of which is levied in London, should be kept in the capital. Together with all property taxes this would give the Mayor the opportunity, as the Scots and Welsh will be doing, to reform it into something more progressive — and direct the proceeds into creating new homes and communities to benefit all Londoners.

Richard Blakeway is London’s deputy mayor for housing and land