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London needs a funding package to get through the COVID-19 downturn and provide the social homes the city needs
Our taskforce recommends decisive action to support the housing market in London through the forthcoming downturn. Now it is over to government to act, writes Tom Copley
The public health crisis caused by coronavirus is also a huge threat to jobs and livelihoods. Grim reports of lay-offs in sectors from retail to manufacturing are reminiscent of the dark days of the early 1980s when national unemployment topped three million.
The housing and construction sector is being hit hard too, with estimates that coronavirus could mean up to 244,000 construction jobs being lost this year alone.
However, we are not powerless in the face of this looming crisis. Today, we’re publishing the final report of London’s COVID-19 Housing Delivery Taskforce. It sets out a plan to fix the twin challenges of unaffordable housing and the threat to construction jobs, laying out a clear way forward for London’s housing recovery.
The taskforce is an ambitious project to find common ground among everyone in the sector – from trades unions to businesses and from private developers to housing associations and councils. It shows the huge degree of consensus around what London needs to build its way through this crisis while protecting jobs now and in the future.
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London went into this pandemic in a strong position on housing delivery. Last year, mayor of London Sadiq Khan started more than 17,000 new genuinely affordable homes – exceeding any time since records began in 2003. More than 3,300 new council homes were started, the most in any year since 1985 – the year I was born.
But more is now needed to respond to the huge challenges of coronavirus and this demands more from us all, including the government. The message from the taskforce is clear: if ministers step up to provide the funding and powers we need, then London’s housing sector stands ready to deliver and support the recovery – not just in the capital but across the entire country.
In the short-term, we need a new kick-start funding package to give certainty to the housing market and the jobs it supports, while prioritising the genuinely affordable homes Londoners need.
Our taskforce’s report makes the case for a £5bn stimulus package to boost the number of new genuinely affordable homes, including a pioneering ‘buyer of last resort’ package to allow councils and housing associations to buy unsold private homes at cost. This will give confidence to house builders and increase the supply of much-needed social rented homes.
We need government to work with City Hall and London councils to step up efforts to bring forward land, including public land, for affordable housing and sites suitable for smaller builders which are the backbone of our development industry.
“If ministers step up to provide the funding and powers we need, then London’s housing sector stands ready to deliver and support the recovery”
This should include the government giving councils and the mayor the power to compulsory purchase land much more cheaply and a new ‘compulsory selling order’ power for local authorities to force the sale and development of land and buildings which have lain derelict for a period of time.
Direct support from government, together with the mayor, could super-charge an increase in cutting-edge precision manufactured homes, delivered at scale and to high-quality and environmental standards.
To boost our construction workforce and safeguard the jobs of the future, the government should use this opportunity to invest in construction apprenticeships and make this vital sector a good career prospect for the young people leaving school, college or university this year and facing an uncertain future.
Together, the taskforce’s recommendations would help lift London and the country out of the COVID-19 downturn and protect thousands of jobs. London’s housing sector has spoken – it’s now over to the government to act.
Tom Copley, deputy mayor for housing and residential development
