Zoë Garbett, the Green Party candidate for Mayor of London, has pledged to tackle poor quality housing across London.
Zoë, who is also a councillor for Dalston in Hackney, has pledged to prioritise action to improving housing standards by addressing issues like damp and poor insulation.
She said, “No Londoner should live in a cold, damp, mouldy, draughty home. But sadly, so many of us do.
The Green candidate visited one resident in East London to talk about the lack of maintenance being done on her home where she has lived for 44 years.
Talking about the issues she faced as a social housing tenant, Rosa told Zoë, “I’ve lived here for 44 years and now I feel very, very let down.
“I am living with mould and damp at every window as well as the draught coming in. When it’s windy, I might as well be sitting outside.
“My bills are huge because literally the heating is going out of the window.”
Talking about how she would fix the issue if elected as Mayor of London on 2 May, Zoë said, “I would aim to cut the number of these poor quality houses by at least a third in 2028, even faster if we can secure more funding.
“I would immediately set up a Cold Homes Strategy with an insulation and ventilation taskforce to deal with cold and damp homes across our city,
She also committed to working with local authorities to recruit more Environmental Health Officers to support tenants and enforce high standards across council and private sector housing.
Zoë said, “There is a big shortage of council staff to do the roles needed to take action on behalf of tenants having to live in these awful conditions. We need to train up much more staff to do this.
Talking about the current Labour Mayor of London’s record on this, she pointed out: “The Mayor of London have failed to use the funds that have been made available.
“In the first year of his much heralded “Social Housing Decarbonisation Scheme”, only 157 homes across the whole city were upgraded in London. That is a staggering failure.
“London deserves a Mayor that will take this seriously. As a renter myself I know just how important this is to millions of people that live here.”