ROOF Blog

At least 5,500 properties owned by London’s authorities are unoccupied, more than 3,000 of which have been vacant for three months or more. This is despite 353,000 people across the city waiting to be housed. The figures, released under the Freedom of Information Act, created fury among campaigners. Duncan Shrubsole, of homelessness charity Crisis, said: ‘It’s scandalous to have so many properties empty and we would urge all local authorities to make sure they are using their council housing to maximum capacity.’ Councils today defended their position saying many of the houses were uninhabitable. Lambeth Living, which manages social housing for Lambeth council, has 1,090 properties empty, 848 for more than three months, and 18,000 households on its housing waiting list — 8,000 of those families of two or more. A spokeswoman said empty properties were usually awaiting repair, redecoration or re-letting.

Average household wealth in the south-east of England is almost twice that in Scotland, according to the Office for National Statistics’ (ONS) first ‘Wealth in Great Britain’ report, which also found that London was not as wealthy as you might think.

The ONS painted a detailed picture of affluence and borrowing habits after collecting evidence from 31,000 households across Britain and estimating the value of their housing, pension investments and other possessions.

For many of the respondents to the survey, accumulating a healthy portfolio of assets was a distant dream: the least wealthy 10 per cent of households had negative total net wealth – owing more on their mortgages or other loans than their properties and other goods are worth.

Boris Johnson’s key election pledge to build 50,000 affordable homes in London in his first three years in office will not be delivered, City Hall has admitted.

The Mayor’s deputy for planning Sir Simon Milton said the target must be pushed to 2012 due to the downturn.

The number of affordable homes started since Mr Johnson was elected is 6,500, with 9,080 completions. At that rate the number built by May 2011 would be between 13,000 and 21,000.

Nicky Gavron, Labour’s housing representative on the London Assembly, said: ‘This is yet another broken promise’.

Figures from Communities and Local Government show that house prices fell 12.5 per cent in May. London saw the biggest decline in England with prices falling 16.3 per cent, while Northern Ireland suffered the largest drop with prices down 23.2 per cent between April and May. Howard Archer, an economist at HIS Global Insight, said he believed a further decline of 10 per cent was possible.

A freedom of information request by Andrew Slaughter, London MP for Ealing, Acton and Shepherd’s Bush, has found presentations made by the Conservative leader of Hammersmith and Fulham council to senior Tory figures calling for limiting social housing to the old, infirm and disabled in a bid to solve the ‘concentration of deprivation’. Council leader Stephen Greenhalgh suggested a range of ‘radical reforms’ including wanting to see social rents rise to market levels; welfare payments based on need rather than rent paid; an end to tenure for life by those in need of social housing; five-year reviews of existing tenants to check on changing circumstances; and demolition of some of the borough’s largest council estates.

New publicly funded homes built in the London will have to comply with minimum internal space standard major Boris Johnson said. The London housing design guide established six key areas of design that new development will have to incorporate from 2011, including minimum space standards around 10 per cent higher than the Parker Morris benchmark, better integration of developments with the space around them and to reduce crime; and a greater mix of dwelling types to care for London’s diverse living needs.

The number of rough sleepers in London has risen by 15 per cent in the last year, fuelled by an increase in Eastern Europeans who have lost their jobs and now make up one in seven of those living on the street. According to the figures from Broadway more than 4,600 rough sleepers were counted in the capital last year, up from just over 4,000, with around 60 per cent of street homeless being British born.

The decline in property values and a drop in sterling has sent London tumbling down the list of the world’s most expensive cities for expatriates, according to the Mercer survey. London came third out of 143 cities in the poll last year, but has dropped to the sixteenth most expensive city this year. Tokyo topped this year’s rankings, followed by Osaka, Moscow – last year’s most costly city – with Geneva and Hong Kong taking the other two places in the top five.

The mental health problems faced by rough sleepers has reached a ‘critical level’ following a rise in the homelessness rate, St Mungo’s has found. Among its clients, 40 per cent were diagnosed with depression and 22 per cent were diagnosed with schizophrenia, which St Mungo’s called ‘the tip of the iceberg’. It warned that the government’s target to end homelessness in London by 2012 will be missed unless the link between mental health and homelessness is broken. There has been a 15 per cent rise in the homelessness rate in London in the past year – the equivalent of five new rough sleepers a day.

The long-term regeneration legacy of the 2012 Olympic Park in London has been called into question by the London Assembly’s economic development committee. In a progress report the committee concluded that without a ‘credible anchor tenant’ for the stadium, the creation of 10,000 new homes in the community, several schools and many jobs was just ‘aspirational’ and benefits may not appear for ‘many, many years’ after 2012.