London Green Party Assembly Member Darren Johnson has called for a radical rethink of housing policy, in light of the Mayor’s research showing that one third of new homes across Greater London are bought by overseas investors, with another third bought by British investor landlords. Darren’s report, Crumbs for Londoners, claims that this leads to:
- most Londoners with little choice but a lifetime of insecure renting
- housing wealth trickling into a smaller number of hands, including people who don’t even live in the homes they buy
- homes unnecessarily demolished to make way for new luxury flats, pushing low income Londoners out
- residents trampled on, rather than being empowered as the Mayor says he wants
- very little affordable housing built, leading to a severe social housing shortage
Darren Johnson commented:
“Nobody walks past a block of luxury flats bought up by foreign investors and feels comforted that housing supply is on the up. The Mayor is championing investors over residents, leaving them to make do with crumbs from the feast. He needs to radically rethink his approach.
“We want people to invest in viable British businesses, not in luxury flats with little or no social housing. The Mayor should champion social housing, stabilising rent controls and controls on investors to tip the scales in favour of residents.”