Call for affordable housing for front-line workers
NHS and London Ambulance Service staff are being priced out of the communities they serve, deepening vacancy pressures across London.
The London Assembly today agreed that despite progress on Key Worker Living Rent homes, access to suitable housing remains too limited. They called on the Mayor to secure more affordable homes on NHS land, prioritise housing near workplaces, support a dedicated LAS housing plan, and work with NHS unions to ensure policies meet frontline needs.
Sem Moema AM, who proposed the motion, said:
“NHS staff like London Ambulance Service workers keep our city going, yet too many are being priced out of the communities they serve.
“Without genuinely affordable, accessible housing for key workers, London risks losing the skilled and dedicated staff our health services depend on.
“We must act now to ensure they can live near their workplaces and continue delivering the care Londoners rely on every day.”
The full text of the motion is:
The ongoing housing crisis is creating challenges for London’s key workers, including London Ambulance and other NHS workers, to live within a reasonable distance of their workplace and the communities they serve.
The NHS in London has the highest vacancy rate of any region and the health service is at risk of losing both stability and experience without urgent reform of the provision of key worker housing.
Despite commitments to improve access to key worker housing, London Ambulance Service (LAS) workers and many other frontline NHS workers face prolonged waiting lists, inadequate needs assessments by housing associations, and, in some cases, significant reductions in the number of homes available to them.
We welcome the positive steps taken by the Mayor to provide intermediate housing for key workers, in particular through his commitment to building rent controlled, Key Worker Living Rent homes. Yet more needs to be done.
The Assembly calls on the Mayor to:
- Use his role as Chair of the London Health Board to work with the NHS to encourage a minimum threshold is set for future developments on NHS-owned or formerly NHS-owned land to be reserved for NHS frontline staff working or living in the local area.
- Prioritise the development of practical, genuinely affordable housing for LAS and other frontline NHS workers located within close proximity to workplaces.
- Engage with the LAS to encourage the development of a LAS Housing Strategy which considers how the services’ existing resources can support and enhance worker access to housing.
- Engage directly and meaningfully with recognised trade unions across the NHS to ensure intermediate housing policies genuinely reflect the needs of the NHS workforce.
Changes to planning laws by the previous government have worsened the situation across London. Therefore, we call on the London Estates Delivery Unit to publish, before it closes next year, full details of all NHS land sales where healthcare worker accommodation was either not mandated in the sale agreement or not delivered upon project completion.
The meeting can be viewed via webcast or YouTube.
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Notes to editors
- The Motion was agreed by 14 votes for and 5 against.
- Sem Moema AM, who proposed the motion, is available for interview.
- As well as investigating issues that matter to Londoners, the London Assembly acts as a check and a balance on the Mayor.
For more information, please contact Daniel Zikmund in the Assembly Media Office on 07860647577 or [email protected]. For out of hours media enquiries please call 020 7983 4000 and ask for the Assembly duty press officer.