Green European Parliamentary Candidate Caroline Allen has called for the Mayor to champion social housing and to introduce rent controls as £720k “affordable home” is put on market.
Green MEP candidate Caroline Allen called the £720k
“affordable” home “a new and depressing landmark in
London’s housing madness”
Advertised on sharetobuy.com – which describes itself as ‘making housing affordable’ – the property has an estimated total monthly cost £2,444 which includes: rent of £1,125, a service charge of £320 and a mortgage of £999 on the quarter share purchased. Affordable usually means takes no more than 35% of take-home pay. If this were a couple splitting the costs they would still each need to be earning £60,000 each to cover the cost – yet the advert stipulates that household income must be below £66,000. meaning this flat is very far from affordable.
Speaking in a letter to the Islington Tribune, also published on her blog, Caroline said:
“It is really worrying that people who can only afford a £180,000 share are being tied in to these other very high fees because they can’t afford to access the market in other ways, where they are likely to get a better deal overall.
“These examples show not only how the whole idea of “affordable” housing has become a massive con under Mayor Boris Johnson, but are also an illustration that Islington is not getting the sort of homes it desperately needs, in spite of the claims of the council regarding home building.”
Caroline also criticised Islington Council for failing to impose their own minimum requirements for the proportion of new developments that must be affordable: “in the case of the Loxfords in Highbury they did not even force the developers to meet the full 50% requirement”.
Green Party London Assembly member Darren Johnson, in his recent report on housing in London, Crumbs for Londoners (video introduction, above), revealed two-thirds of new properties being built are sold for investment and a third go to overseas investors, leaving most Londoners with little choice but a lifetime of insecure renting.
The report also found that homes are unnecessarily demolished to make way for new luxury flats, pushing low-income Londoners out.
In the light of this evidence, Caroline called on the Mayor and Local Councils to put the needs of Londoners before those of millionaire investors and developers:
“Housing wealth is trickling into a smaller number of hands, including people who leave the homes they buy empty.
“Residents are trampled on, rather than being empowered. The Mayor says he wants very little affordable housing built, which is leading to a severe social housing shortage.
“Greens are calling on the Mayor to champion social housing and to introduce stabilising rent controls and controls on investors to tip the scales in favour of residents. These dangerous and misleading “affordable” homes cons must be stopped.
“In addition, the council needs to ensure its planning policies are promoting the sort of housing Islington needs and not pandering to developers as we have previously seen.”