Down the drain

The mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, is currently negotiating with the government about future powers and funding for housing. One of the key questions will be whether he can put money into social housing rather than Starter Homes.

“These one-off discounts will be used for homes that will disappear through future sales into the private market.”

The proposal to require Starter Homes in new developments in place of genuinely affordable housing managed to unite Shelter and country landowners, big lenders and poor tenants, rural Tories and Camden Greens.

Just about everybody agrees that Starter Homes are an extremely expensive way to boost homeownership, especially in London. These one-off discounts will be used for homes that will disappear through future sales into the private market.

As with policies sudh as Help to Buy and landlord tax relief, Starter Homes will be a huge waste of public money that mainly serves to boost house prices. But on top of that they will also have an opportunity cost, replacing genuinely affordable housing in planning agreements.

The government should be using our money to invest in housing that will solve a real need and remain affordable for generations to come.

Social housing is just such an investment. Research undertaken by Capital Economics has found that building 100,000 social rented homes a year in the UK would go a long way towards solving our housing crisis and reduce government debts over the next 50 years by 1trn pounds. Starter Homes, by comparison, throw money down the drain.

The countryside lobby got some concessions from government on rural exception sites. But those of us in cities weren’t so lucky.

We need the mayor to get some sensible concessions for London. He should be able to set out the requirements for different types of affordable housing in the London Plan and his Housing Strategy. These requirements should be based on what London needs.

We know from Boris Johnson’s last assessment that London needs almost 16,000 social rented homes a year. So I, backed by a majority of the London Assembly last week, think the government should let the mayor use his planning powers to secure as many of those as possible.

The government should also devolve powers to the mayor to decide how to use affordable housing funds in the capital. Whitehall shouldn’t force the mayor to fund Starter Homes in place of social housing, or indeed shared ownership, shared equity, community land trusts or the other types of low-cost homeownership that are probably more suitable for London.

I don’t expect this government to completely change its mind on social housing, though I think it’s important that we keep making the case for that to happen. I do hope, though, that they respect Sadiq Khan’s mandate, and give him the powers to direct funds to social housing.

Sian Berry, Green member of the London Assembly