Green Party member of the Greater London Assembly, Jenny Jones, has today released a report suggesting that the current shared ownership building programme will do little to stop house prices rising faster than incomes, and that the Mayor should gradually switch to co-operative home ownership models instead.
Her previous report, ‘Coming home to roost’, showed that home ownership has become significantly less affordable for the majority of Londoners in the past decade, and that the policies being pursued by the Mayor and the Government will do little to change this.
Under the previous Mayor, the cost of buying a home rose twice as fast as incomes, whilst less than half of the new housing demand was met. Jenny Jones says:
"The Mayor is trying to provide a pool of affordable homes, but once sold his publicly subsidised barely-affordable homes rise in value much faster than incomes, so they are resold as unaffordable homes. It is like filling a bath with the plug out – the subsidy is going down the drain. Co-operatives could create a pool of homes that offer low cost home ownership for generations to come.
"The Mayor promised to promote co-operative models in his manifesto but has dropped the ball. I hope this report will convince him that a radical switch in subsidy is necessary to help people priced out by another decade of above-inflation price rises.
ENDS
The first report, Coming home to roost, is available from Jenny Jones’ section of the Greater London Authority web site:http://www.london.gov.uk/profile/jenny-jones/reports
Jenny Jones is our candidate for London Mayor 2012. For more information on her campaign, please visit www.jennyforlondon.org