Cheap rented homes "not part of the debate"

Friday, 14 November 2008 15:17

Inside Housing reports Richard Blakeway, the Mayor’s housing adviser saying that London councils will not have to deliver new social housing to meet the affordable housing targets they are negotiating with mayor Boris Johnson: ‘We’ve been very clear that we are decoupling the intermediate/social split from the negotiation over the affordable targets. It is not part of the debate at the moment,’ he said.
 
For decoupling read relegating.
 
Underneath the debate about the abandonment of the policy that fifty per cent of new homes should be affordable, the issue of affordable social rented housing has been the one that has most exercised right-wing Tory authorities. Take this example from 2006. An application from Genesis Housing Group referred to Ken Livingstone in July 2006 for the redevelopment of the Prestolite Factory site in East Acton included 148 affordable rented homes, 33 per cent of the total development. Following the intervention of the now Tory Hammersmith and Fulham Council under Stephen Greenhalgh, this number was cut to just 65. When the Housing Corporation refused to fund a scheme on this basis a further change was made to 92 low rent homes, but this was still a third down on the original application. Ken Livingstone commented at the time that “Hammersmith's actions have the stench of Shirley Porter’s regime at Westminster Council in the 1980s. It is completely unacceptable for any Council to turn down the offer of desperately needed affordable rented homes - especially when this contravenes planning policies.”
 
To make real progress to deliver for Londoners the Mayor has to stand up to backward and reactionary positions like that taken by Hammersmith in this case. Compare the progressive approach taken by Ken Livingstone with that of Boris Johnson. His first test on this issue over the summer was posed by – you guessed it – Hammersmith and Fulham Council.
 
Inside Housing takes up the story: ‘The White City development, in Bloemfontein Road, provided the first test of Mr Johnson’s promises. A month after his election the developers, Building Better Health, removed all social housing from the planning application. Shortly afterwards, Conservative led Hammersmith & Fulham Council – which owns the site and has long argued that it needs no social homes – approved the new plan. Mr Johnson’s officers at the Greater London Authority were unimpressed. In a 15 July report they branded the removal of all social housing from the plans “unacceptable”. The homes, they argued, would be next to a park, health services, and schools – an ideal spot for new social housing. City Hall had two weeks to decide whether to block the plans. Mr Johnson was apparently caught between his officers’ advice and the wishes of his political allies. Hammersmith & Fulham leader Stephen Greenhalgh served on Mr Johnson’s forensic audit panel examining the London Development Agency and was consulted on the mayor’s housing manifesto. Within weeks the GLA officers decided the scheme was acceptable after all. In a second report, produced on 1 August, they concluded: “The zero provision of social rent remains disproportionate, however… planning benefits arising from the scheme are also disproportionate…”. Deputy mayor Ian Clement confirmed that the GLA would not intervene.’
 
Johnson’s first act when faced with a challenge from a Tory council trying to wriggle out of its responsibility to provide social rented accommodation was to overrule his own planning officers and let the council do whatever it wanted.
 
During the Mayoral election, Labour MPs including Karen Buck published a dossier on the errors, poor costings and plans to benefit the better-off that dominated Boris Johnson’s housing manifesto, saying that his housing policies made him “Dame Shirley in a suit.”
 
The consequence of having a Tory Mayor is the abandonment of pressure to deliver on the social housing part of the housing equation. Johnson and Blakeway are giving the green light to Tory boroughs to ignore their responsibility to provide these social rented homes.
 
It is an attack on the interests of thousands of Londoners most in need. City Hall may believe that social rented housing is “not part of the debate at the moment” but Progressive London will be campaigning to ensure it is.