Housing

In comparison the central government who have not built a single house they promised several years ago London is doing better. Still if more brownfieldsites or properties not currently lived in were compulsory purchased then it would help. Particularly in central London many properties lie empty for years held as " investments or part of some money laundering scheme. 
the licensed landlord scheme as used by Croydon were London wide bad landlords would be compelled to sell or upgrade. 
 

The mayor should get on with building the houses for which he has received money from the Government. He talks too much and does not deliver. Why also have so many empty, vacant, or derelict houses in various parts of London not been renovated and improved to provide homes for the people who say they cannot find anywhere to live? Where is the action for which the mayor has received Government money?

We should be housing those who already live and work  in London.  We seem to house asylum seekers and illegal immigrants and don't look after our own, ie war veterans, local people on low incomes and young single homeless.  For years young single teenage mothers have jumped the queue for housing over those who are already on the long housing waiting list.  We also have people in social housing earning more than 100k a year and tenants subletting their social housing.  Councils need to start checking up on their tenants and making sure people aren't breaking the law. I know a few people who have managed to get a social housing property by lying, hiding funds or getting pregnant or make themselves homeless by not paying their rent to private landlords to they are evicted and then put themselves at the mercy of the Council.  Those that abide by the law don't receive any help! We need to change the laws.

If City Hall is in any way financing the Aylesbury Estate so-called regeneration, then City Hall is directly financing the destruction of social housing in London: the GLA summary of february 2019 planning amendments to the Aylesbury show that there will be loss of "766 social rented homes". City Hall should never help to finance the loss of social housing in London.

City Hall should also be aware that families and people who own or have owned their own homes on the Aylesbury have been/ are being/ or will be forcibly evicted from the homes they own, against their will, and without like-for-like replacement. In 21st century London this conduct is immoral. Especially when it is part of the Loss of 766 social rented homes.

City Hall should have no hand, act, or part in such immoral conduct. There is no excuse.

Strongly agree that you should stop using the term "affordable" housing - it is an offensive term for people with low incomes, and it is inherently meaningless: a £50 million home in Belgravia is affordable for people who can afford it. The Mayor's 2019 Annual Monitoring Report, published just over 2 months ago, shows that London's future is 2 point 2 per cent social housing (6,188 social rented is 2.2% of the overall total 276,959). This is a disgracefully bad figure. You say that City Hall has started 4,000 at social rent levels over 3 years. That works out at just 1,333 social rent homes in London per year - another disgracefully bad figure. Some boroughs are much worse: from the Mayor's AMR, Ealing's pipeline is Minus 1296 social rented homes. Southwark's pipeline is Minus 992 social rented homes, following hard on the heels of Minus 540 from Southwark Council's stock 2014-2018 (Government Live Table 116). The Mayor and London Assembly need to get a really serious grip on the catastrophically bad housing crisis in London. Saying that "City Hall is doing all it can to boost social housing numbers in London" is just not credible. City Hall needs to do more than 10 times better than it is currently doing regarding social housing. An example: the GLA summary of planning amendments approved in february 2019 to the Aylesbury Estate so-called regeneration states: Minus 766 social rented homes. This is a scandal. But there is worse: families who own their homes on the Aylesbury are being forcibly evicted, against their will, and without like-for-like replacement. In 21st century London, this is immoral. City Hall should write out 1000 times "We need to perform more than 10 times better on social housing than the disastrous way we are currently performing"..."We need to perform more than 10 times better on social housing than the disastrous way we are currently performing"...."We need to perform more than 10 times better on social housing......

Stop using the term "affordable homes" it's a complete lie.  Homes are affordable if they can be bought by someone on an average wage...none in London are!  As someone who earns above the average wage i still had to use a government scheme to be able to afford my flat ... and lets be honest the government schemes don't ultimately help you out much apart from put you into debt for much longer.  Shared ownership charges expensive rent on the portion of the property you don't own, this rent increases with time and buying a bigger share of your property to reduce the proportion of rent is expensive in itself.  Help-to-buy requires you already earn a large salary to begin with and after the 5 year interest free period you have to pay interest on the part of the mortgage the government leant you...which goes up regularly, with house prices in London do high, this interest can be a lot of money.  And again, buying more of that loan back is expensive.  The solution is to reduce house prices or control them.

Additionally, all Londoners are subject to the unregulated and completely corrupt industry of property management and estate agents who charge through the teeth for everything.  For example, the monthly service charge i pay is more than double my council tax, and only pays for things like maintenance of the corridors, flower beds and outside of the building, it doesn't need to cost this much but the fact the assembly can't be bothered to put some rules and regulations around this mean these nasty companies squeeze as much out of their customers as possibly.  It's next to impossible to change management companies because of they way they word their contracts.  Renters suffer from massive contract charges adn ever increasing rent.  The London Assembly really needs to get a grip ofd this industry and make sure it's acting fairly.

The privilege in owning a site of land in London should be compensated for by returning to the city council some money for it.The way that land is being badly used due to monopolization and speculation in its price and rent should be stopped.  The proper way to do this is to make its ownership less attractive by a tax on land values. The added local income can either be shared or used to relieve other taxes that help to reduce productive activities, or to make improvements in facilities for public health, policing, education, etc. Nationally withheld sites should be leased not sold.

The housing problem is part of a larger issue - the nature of the Londoncentric UK economy.  Part of the solution has to be working with other organisations on solutions for reviving the economies of other regions.

In the meantime we need to tackle the problems created by property bought for investment and left unoccupied.  
 

Better regulation of the private rental business, as has been done in Scotland, would also be useful.

A properly functioning housing market would need little to no public spending on housing, because supply would be readily met by the private sector.  The fundamental problem is:

1. The planning system costs too much and takes too long to enable smaller scale private investors to build more housing in London, so only very large developers can afford it.  Significant liberalisation of this would make it more affordable to people to commission building their own homes as in other jurisdictions.  It shouldn't cost tens of thousands of pounds to get permission to build a house on your own land or significantly expand your house, this would help break the oligopoly of large builders which is not seen in other jurisdictions.  Councils also need to stop trying to socially engineer the types of housing they think people should have, as they seek to stop new housing having car parks and let those who want housing drive what is built.

2. London has much more social housing than some comparable cities (see Switzerland) encouraging people to move to a city where they actually can't afford to get housing.  It should be a backstop for local people who need temporary housing, not for anyone from out of London wanting to set up their life here. Far too many people think they have a "right" to a flat close to central London that most people on average or even relatively high incomes could never afford.

3. 10% of Greenbelt land could be opened up increasing land for house building by 50%, there is plenty of Greenbelt land adjacent to railway stations, some of which is car parks, gravel pits or other wasteland.

To that end the Mayor should phase out spending on new social housing, and concentrate efforts on regulatory reform so that smaller private investors including prospective home owners can afford to build their own homes.

Completely agree with all these comments.. London is too expensive to rent privately even in the outer suburbs.. even though I work all my money goes on rent and bills..I do not have a chance of even getting on a Council Housing list as there are no property's.  I know people who are still waiting after years of being on the housing list to get a home but like me, born and raised here, we won't get anywhere as we are Londoners and white.  Immigrants get the help not us and it is so unfair.

Nothing is been done for families like mine who live in the area they were born but struggle in private rented housing of poor quality but definitely not cheap as it takes most of our income. I see plenty of housing been built, around my locality but it all is given to council list home seekers from other parts of London who seem to have priority. My family is not able to access any of the housing association homes been built as the council sees us as housed. Every month we struggle to pay the rent and bills living on credit cards. The day will come soon when we will be evicted and I doubt then we will be entitled to any help at all as there is a never ending increasing population in this borough. We are the fourth generation to live in this borough with relatives here since before the Second World War but we are dismissed as not been in need. The localism act doesn't apply to us! The local council has shared home ownership houses for families numbering three! At £800,000 with a 25% share at £256,000, it's astronomically unaffordable- we can not afford a deposit on shared home ownership never mind the unaffordable rental and maintenance charges. 

To continue funding the start of 116,000 new affordable homes by 2022. City Hall is doing all it can to boost social housing numbers in London – however, central government requires that around half of these are for Londoners on middle incomes. We know the need for affordable homes for social rent is far greater.  Approximately £2.7 billion per annum in affordable housing grant from central government is required – more than four times the current average - Affordable isnt affordable as its  based on the prices paid by buy to let landlords / investors. ban buying an affordable property to existing homeowners (unless legitimately upsizing) and stipulate no leasing on those properties. also set maximum earning limits on those properties. i know of a solicitor worth £4m who brought an affordable home because it was cheaper that he kept for 1 year to sell at a huge profit. set regulations on minimum ownership periods (with valid exceptions such as legitimate upsizing, financial burdens etc) 

Ongoing support to tackle homelessness and rough sleeping, by continuing to ensure 85 per cent of those supported by our services exit rough sleeping, and by launching a new service for rough sleepers not new to the street - tackle the empty properties brought as investments by offshore companies etc they could house the vast majority!

 I haven’t seen any affordable housing in London. I have seen lots of studio apartments where you can buy a proportionate amount of the apartment but not actually fully own it. It’s still incredibly hard to get on the housing ladder in London but a lot easier in places like Nottingham, Birmingham,Leicester,Manchester, Derby etc.

people in their 30’s and 40’s still aren’t on the housing ladder in London and their doesn’t appear to be any help for this age group.  

Part of the issue is the types of housing being built. We don't need endless supplies of "modern" (read expensive) 1 bed flats. There is a planning application to build flats near my rented place, and I would love to stay in the area and buy one of these flats, but the application shows that the flats are all designed with renting bedrooms out in mind, with only a small communal area. We need decent sized good quality housing rather than an obsession with "modern" appliances and decor which only inflate the price. 

Stop letting in illegal immigrants in the UK they are putting the local councils under pressure to build more homes over green belt countryside and woodland destroying wildlife habitat we don't need any more homes built this problem will be solved if illegal immigrants got deported back to their country I think it's disgusting that they are given homes and benefits ahead of rough sleepers