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Mayor's plan to open housing waiting lists
Ross Lydall and Pippa Crerar07.11.07
Key workers and low-income families caught up in the race for affordable homes could lose out to applicants from other boroughs under a shake-up being proposed by Ken Livingstone.
The Mayor wants to scrap waiting lists that give preference to applicants in their "home" borough and instead make all new social housing equally available to all Londoners.
The plan has angered London's local authorities, which fear residents will object to new housing developments if their families are no longer given priority over non-residents.
More than 300,000 households are on council waiting lists in the capital, 50 per cent more than in 2001.
Jamie Carswell, London Councils' executive member for housing, said: "It is essential that local people have a stake in the new homes that boroughs are building."
The proposals, part of the Mayor's draft housing strategy, would see all new affordable homes - those built for rent or part-purchase - being put into a London-wide pot by January 2009.
A system called Capital Moves is being devised to encourage councils to make five per cent of their existing stock - and those housing association properties to which they have nominationrights - available to residents of other London boroughs.
However, this only equates to 1,700 homes a year, effectively one home becoming available per week in each borough.
The Mayor wants this figure to increase to 25 per cent by 2012 and further-in subsequent years. He also wants more effort made to help the estimated 42,000 Londoners willing to leave the capital to find new homes in areas with over-capacity, helping to free up properties.
Mr Livingstone said: "Each borough takes a very narrow view looking after its own waiting list, offering no more than a handful of lettings to people from other parts of the city.
"When you look at the size of some boroughs the idea that there's an iron curtain between, for example, Hammersmith and Kensington or Islington and Camden, where people move across those boundaries for employment all the time, [is wrong].
"If we're to get people out of long term unemployment, one of the ways is to enable them to move to where the jobs are. That's one of the main driving factors in this."
Under the Greater London Authority Act, which received royal assent last month, the Mayor gained control of the Government's £1billion-a-year affordable housing budget and can set policies for the boroughs to follow.
But London Councils believes he has become "obsessed" with targets and says there is no evidence that huge numbers of people want to move around the capital.
Nigel Kersey of the Council for the Protection of England said it was vital to provide homes for key workers as they were the wage-earners who contributed to the economy.
Reader views (5)
Everybody has the right to a decent home, I think London's lost a lot of its community spirit, half the ASBO problems are caused by the breaking up of the estates, get it right Ken make them safer bring back the feeling our great city belongs to all us, give the residents more power to look after their own environment, one thing is true Ken you will not achieve it without us.
- Terence J Edwards, London
I do not believe that he should have any more powers. Let him play his ceremonial role until the elections when someone capable can be appointed.
- Jacqueline, Hampstead, London
He seems to be ignoring the fact that many people have moved near their work previously because of the cost and annoyance of lateness of public transport but they are already being superceded by migrants in the housing lists.
This is hardly an ecological move either because it will be promoting travelling to work. He should be promoting living locally to work so people can cycle or walk and not use any form of motorised transport. Only a couple of days ago it was claimed that traffic had gotten worse since the introduction of the congestion charge.
- Kit Robinson, Hounslow
To give this Red Ken more power would, I think, be a big error. He has made London a worse place.
- Stevo, London
This was one of the reasons that I voted against the idea of having a mayor in the first place, the fact that they were going to be given to much power to interfere with the running of the local authorities in London.
Ken says "If we're to get people out of long term unemployment, one of the ways is to enable them to move to where the jobs are. That's one of the main driving factors in this." That would be understandable if we were living in the middle ages without any public transport, but it is quite easy to move across London via bus or tube.
- David Kitemaker-Hall, London, UK
