Property News · May 25, 2016

The Guardian view on housing in London: bricks and mortals | Editorial


Records of who owns what in one plush tower by the Thames reveals how the capital has been building for ghosts, rather than its own citizensThere is no longer room for argument about the fact that Britain’s capital is, like much of the country, gripped by an appalling housing crisis. The statistics about average property prices being the wrong side of 10 times the average London wage make the same point in the language of economics that reports of toilets being installed inside kitchen cupboards in studio flats convey by anecdote. After the mayoral election at the start of this month, in which housing emerged as the dominant campaign theme, its political salience is also an established fact. Where swing voters once sat pretty, watching the value of their homes rise through the roof, London is now slipping back towards being a city of tenants, with a younger generation of renters left cash-strapped in the immediate term, and locked out of ownership deep into the future. There is, then, a growing consensus that there is a real problem here, and that Something Must Be Done.The irony, however, evident to every eye which scans the crane-streaked skyline, is that there is no shortage of activity connected with London real estate. Properties are endlessly extended, refitted and converted, and the steady spread of high-rise towers continues. No doubt the great draw of this world city, which pulls in so many internal economic migrants from other parts of the UK as well as from overseas, is one big part of the problem. But the overall volume of demand is not the only question; the other is what sort of demand gets addressed by all the activity on the supply side. And it is here that the Guardian’s analysis of an iconic 50-storey development near the Thames – the Tower, at Vauxhall – sheds some unforgiving light. Continue reading…

Source : theguardian.com
Read more…The Guardian view on housing in London: bricks and mortals | Editorial

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