London: Clear Blue Water on Housing

By Ken Livingstone from the 'Morning Star' - see socialistunity.com for some interesting analysis on the significance of the London Mayor Election and re-electing Ken for the Left.

OF all the issues on which I disagree strongly with the Tory candidate for mayor Boris Johnson, there is one where there is an absolutely clear line of division between progressive politics and the divisive agenda of the right - and that is housing.
The Tories have now emphatically come out against my policy that half of all new housing should be affordable.
In a speech to the National House Building Council (NHBC) on November 21, Boris Johnson said that I should stop bullying London councils to deliver on my target of 50 percent affordable housing and argued that I shouldn’t get “hung up” on percentages.
Well, from the perspective of Henley-on-Thames, there may not be much need to get “hung up” on affordable housing targets, but try telling that to those people who are living in overcrowded squalor.
Of course, Boris Johnson is not alone in the Tory ranks.
He was joined by his right-wing colleagues on the London Assembly who recently voted against a Labour and Lib Dem motion, also backed by the Greens, supporting the 50 per cent affordable housing policy.
So sharp is the division over housing that, in BBC London’s report of Johnson’s NHBC speech, they remarked on the “clear blue water” between myself and the Tories on this issue.
The reasons for a tough target of 50 per cent are self-evident - we are reaping the seeds of neglect and decay sown in the 1980s and ’90s by the Tories when they halted council-house building, leaving it, instead, to market forces to resolve the housing needs of Londoners.
Needless to say, market forces didn’t oblige and, today, we are feeling the consequences.
Seven years ago, when London got its own government back, the supply of new affordable homes had virtually dried up and the supply of new homes in general was still too low because of the planning regime that existed.
This was the disastrous Tory legacy imposed on London by Thatcher and Major.
We are beginning to turn that around. The number of new homes being built in London is up from just over 17,000 in 2000 to over 27,000 in 2006-7.
And, by using the planning powers devolved to me at the start of my first term, coupled with the higher targets that half of all new homes should be affordable, housing stock has begun to rise.
The government is now devolving further housing and planning powers to my office, including giving me direct responsibility for London’s affordable housing budget, which is worth over £1 billion a year.
Shelter has strongly backed the new housing strategy for London, which builds on the progress that we have made so far and utililises the affordable housing targets to keep up the pressure for new homes.
It would be a disaster at this point to adopt the policy of reducing the pressure for affordable new homes.
The new housing strategy has, as its centrepiece, a proposal to build 50,000 more affordable homes in London over the next three years.
This constitutes a 50 per cent increase in the delivery of affordable London homes and a doubling in the supply of homes for social rent.
We also need more affordable family-sized homes. Our new strategy will mean a four-fold increase in the number of new larger homes for low-cost home ownership.
There is a real opportunity opening up to the east of London in the Thames Gateway to build three and four-bedroom affordable homes, supported by the necessary infrastructure and transport links.
Nowhere else offers the brownfield land and the public transport capacity needed. And nowhere else has the same opportunities to create a better quality of life for residents around the river, new parks and renewed town centres.
The Tories say that they would do more to encourage home ownership - something their policy of drying up the supply of housing, including affordable housing, did nothing to help.
In fact, the latest figures show that, of the five councils with the most new shared ownership homes in 2006-7, all but one had adopted the 50 per cent affordable homes target.
Boris Johnson’s right-wing argument against affordable housing targets that “meeting these targets can get in the way of our goals” has been shown to be totally wrong by our record on housing in London.
So, I welcome the fact that providing desperately needed affordable housing, with a clear 50 per cent target, has become a key battle line and I for one relish the fight.