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Most London children in poverty have parent with job

A new report also shows that the capital's overall rate continues to be one of the country's highest
Dave Hill

One London child in three is classified as being “in poverty” and three-quarters of them have at least one parent with a job, according a report for the End Child Poverty coalition of charities.

The report, compiled by the Centre for Research at Loughborough University using data for the financial year 2021/22, also finds that Tower Hamlets is the local authority with, at 47.5 per cent, the highest child poverty rate nationally.

Newham (43.7 per cent), Hackney (43.4 per cent) and Barking & Dagenham (42.1 per cent) also feature in the highest 20 local authorities by that measure. The lowest London borough rates are in Hillingdon (31 per cent), Harrow (30.6 per cent) and Enfield (30.9 per cent).

A household is defined as being in poverty if its income after housing costs are taken into account is below 60 per cent of the local median income.

The overall child poverty rate for London, 32.9 per cent, is found by the report to be fourth highest in the UK as categorised by nation or region, behind the West Midlands (38.4 per cent), the North East (35.2 per cent) and the North West (34.3 per cent). It compares to a rate of 29.2 per cent for the UK as a whole.

Children in lone parents families are particularly likely to be living in poverty, with 48 per cent of London households affected. The same is true of children from ethnic minority groups and those in larger families.

The End Child Poverty Commission says that the year to the end of March 2022 includes six-month period in which the government’s temporary £20 a week increase in Universal Credit was in place and does not cover the months in which the cost of living crisis took effect.

Twitter: Dave Hill and On London.

On London and its writers need your backing. Give £5 a month or £50 a year and receive in return the weekly newsletter On London Extra and (at no additional charge) invitations to events featuring eminent Londoners. Pay using any of the “donate” buttons on the site, by becoming a paid subscriber to my Substack, or directly into the company bank account. Email davehillonlondon@gmail.com for details. Thanks. Dave Hill.

Categories: News
Tags: child poverty, Child Poverty Action Group, poverty

Sadiq Khan urges Suella Braverman to reconsider ‘cruel and unworkable’ migrant measures

The Mayor has written to the Home Secretary following a City Hall gathering to discuss implications of Illegal Migration Bill
Dave Hill

Sadiq Khan has warned Home Secretary Suella Braverman (pictured) that 50,000 asylum seekers living in London could be left in “immigration limbo” if her “cruel and unworkable” Illegal Migration Bill becomes law, placing them at risk of harm and exploitation and putting “already-stretched services in London on crisis footing”.

In a letter, the Mayor says he is “deeply concerned” by what he heard last week from over 200 experts from the capital’s local authorities, health service and voluntary groups who gathered at City Hall to discuss the potential impacts of measures proposed in the Bill, which would apply retrospectively to anyone who has arrived in the UK illegally since 7 March.

The government says people crossing the English Channel in small boats will be removed from the UK, and barred from ever returning or applying for British citizenship.

According to the United Nations Refugee Agency the legislation, currently being scrutinised in the House of Lords, “would amount to an asylum ban” by taking away the right of those who arrive by irregular means to refugee protection “no matter how compelling their claim may be”.

Critics say this will effectively reward people traffickers, to whom asylum-seekers often turn if legal routes are not available, and create a category of people detained at public expense and not allowed to work who will nonetheless end up remaining in the country, possibly for years.

In his letter, Khan draws attention to a recent incident which resulted in about 40 asylum seekers sleeping on a street in Pimlico rather than reportedly sharing four to a room at the Comfort Inn to which they had been sent. Westminster Council complained to the Home Office, but was told the accommodation “meets all legal and contractual requirements”.

Khan argues that the incident makes clear that “the current asylum system is broken and this Bill will serve only to deepen the challenge” possibly resulting in “50,000 people over the next three years left in London, unable to access support, work or legitimate avenues to fend for themselves”.

He adds, “This legislation provides no recourse for victims of trafficking and modern slavery to seek help, which undermines decades of collaborative work across local and national government to root out slavery and exploitation through a victim-centred approach,” and expresses particular concern about the impact on children.

“The measures proposed in the Bill run counter to the fundamental responsibilities that local authorities uphold to safeguard all children in their care and to ensure they receive the right support that meets their needs,” Khan says.

He concludes: “Put simply, this Bill is cruel and unworkable and will do untold damage to thousands of people that would otherwise have found sanctuary and safety in London. I urge you to reconsider the measures in this Bill and work to create an asylum system that helps to protect vulnerable people.”

Twitter: Dave Hill and On London.

On London and its writers need your backing. Give £5 a month or £50 a year and receive in return the weekly newsletter On London Extra and (at no additional charge) invitations to events featuring eminent Londoners.

Pay using any of the “donate” buttons on the site, by becoming a paid subscriber to my Substack, or directly into the company bank account. Email davehillonlondon@gmail.com for details. Thanks. Dave Hill.

Categories: News
Tags: immigration, Pimlico, Sadiq Khan, Suella Braverman

London’s Business Improvement Districts look to the future

They have established themselves as part of the capital's neighbourhood governance landscape and now their roles are evolving in response to new challenges
Charles Wright

It was almost 20 years ago when Kingston saw the UK’s first Business Improvement District (BID) designated. The idea, of businesses getting together to improve their local area, had begun in north America and has spread rapidly.

BIDs are established by a majority vote of business ratepayers in the proposed area and funded by a compulsory levy, generally set at between one and two per cent of rateable value. A fresh ballot is held every five years. There are now 73 BIDS in London, 65 of them in the centre.

A glance at a BIDs map reveals the growing patchwork of these business fiefdoms, from Holborn to the South Bank, through the West End and into Victoria and Paddington, east through the Square Mile and beyond to Brixton, Croydon, Wood Green and elsewhere.

They’ve come a long way from their initial focus on “crime and grime” – cleaner streets, hanging baskets and “ranger” security teams – often picking up work cash-strapped councils can no longer afford take on. Generating £57 million in levy income in London last year, they are increasingly about larger-scale “placemaking”, environmental upgrades, economic strategy and advocacy.

How are London’s BIDs embracing this wider role, along with the fresh challenges of the post-Covid city and the changing high street? That was the focus of a New London Architecture (NLA) network session held last week which brought together BID representatives from the West End, Holborn, Fleet Street and Croydon.

Their presentations, featuring film star statues and giraffe sculptures as well as the jet-washing of pavements and graffiti removal, showed just part of the job BIDS do, said Central Business Alliance chair (and On London contributor) Alexander Jan, outlining a work programme that includes environmental improvements, training, community grant-giving and even topping up Camden Council’s cost-of-living crisis fund for residents.

The Heart of London BID had just produced its own evening and night-time economy strategy and its place-shaping strategy contains 44 proposals for major improvements from Charing Cross Road to Piccadilly, said destination director Mark Williams. The new Fleet Street Quarter BID’s ambitious public realm plans will launch in the autumn added its chief executive, Lucy French.

BIDs have strong advocates. Boris Johnson when Mayor supported their creation with grant funding and formal guidance, and just before leaving office in 2016 met a manifesto target of 50 London BIDs. Speaking earlier this year as the Square Mile’s latest BID, covering its culture mile, was launched, Ruth Duston, a major force behind BIDs across central London, heralded the initiatives as a “powerful and strategic force for good” with a “proven track record for driving change and innovation”.

Not everyone agrees. Back in 2012, when he discovered his home was to be in the proposed Fitzrovia BID area, comedian turned Civic Voice and Victorian Society president Griff Rhys Jones railed against an “undemocratic attempt to manipulate Fitzrovia into something it is not”.

A decade on, his fears about demands for “more building, more density, more ‘commerciality’” may not have been realised. The BID basics of creating “clean, safe, attractive, welcoming town centres”, remain central to their work, Croydon BID chief executive Matthew Sims told the NLA session. But with high streets and town centres under continuing pressure from changes to retail habits and working patterns, and with local councils still hard-pressed, BIDs are nevertheless “at a crossroads,” Sims warned. “We need to transform, reimagine, reinvent our spaces,” he said. And that would mean more engagement with residents as well as businesses.

Even before Covid, concerns about the need for wider involvement in high street renewal were being aired. With Covid raising the stakes, a 2021 Centre for London report on town centre governance argued that “the case for some kind of mechanism which allows communities a seat at the table is strong”.

Sadiq Khan, unlike his predecessor, hasn’t set a target for new BIDs, though he was happy to back Croydon’s renewal ballot last year, describing BIDS as “pillars of many of our local economies”. And City Hall is supporting a “Community Improvement District” model in Wood Green, part of a post-Covid pilot bringing residents and community-led organisations into the decision-making process for their neighbourhoods, complementing the BID for that area.

Could that be a way forward, even perhaps for the city’s commerce-dominated centre – which has a well-established residential population too – as London’s high streets and town centres continue to change?

The government has been lukewarm in response to calls for reform, but the purely business-led model may be adapting in any case. As the BID Foundation trade body concluded in 2019, “it is arguably those BIDs that are inclusive of all business types, and can reach out to other important groups, such as residents, which will be the ones that are better able to manage this change”.

Twitter: Charles Wright and On London. Photograph from NLA.

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Categories: News
Tags: Alexander Jan, Business Improvement Districts, EC BID, Fleet Street Quarter, Lucy French, Ruth Duston

John Vane: Excerpt from Frightgeist – Introducing Saint Devine

In an alternative London of the very recent past, a larger-than-life independent candidate for Mayor is mounting a serious challenge to the Labour incumbent
John Vane

One of the lead characters in my novel Frightgeist, set in an alternative “London, lately”, is Aloysius St Devine, a self-made property tycoon and a star of a hit reality TV show called Nude Entrepreneur.

Saint, as he is known, is campaigning to become Mayor of London as an independent candidate, and has emerged as the main challenger to under-pressure Labour incumbent Lorraine Linton. He has a popular touch and the gift of the gab.

Saint’s first appearance in the novel comes early on, when he is interviewed by a young female TV reporter next to a new block of flats he has built. The following excerpt has been slightly edited to purge it of a plot spoiler. Could such a candidate stand a chance of becoming Mayor in real life? You decide.

Saint winked at the young female reporter from Your London TV and turned to his right-hand man.

‘Kev, have you got my weeding trowel?’ He turned back. ‘Bear with me for a moment, would you, sweetheart? I can’t relax until it’s sorted. I’m a bit kinky that way.’

Kevin produced the trowel. They were standing at the foot of sixteen floors of New London Vernacular, its elevations starkly wan as if in a sandblasted state of shock. Glass balconies jutted like open drawers.

Saint made his way across the forecourt, trowel held purposefully erect as he closed on his prey. The cameraman accompanying the reporter filmed his progress. Saint lowered one Hugo Boss knee to the paving slabs, caressed the weed between finger and thumb, slipped the trowel into the crack, eased out the rogue foliage and held this trophy aloft, pinky finger raised in a parody of daintiness.

‘I didn’t do that just for your benefit,’ he said to the reporter, sauntering back. ‘That’s just what I’m like, right Kev?’

‘Perfectionism is your byword Saint,’ said Kevin, taking the trowel back.

‘Precisely,’ Saint agreed. ‘Has been for all fifty years of my adult life. The Saint can’t be having it. Punters move in, what do they not want to see by their front door? A flora and fauna invasion! A triffid insurgency! Truth is, and make sure your viewers get this young lady, the Saint is consumed by the sin of vanity.’

The young reporter laughed. ‘OK, noted.’

Saint dropped the weed, crushed it beneath his heel and flicked its corpse into a flowerbed, the toe of his handmade shoes scraping the textured walkway expensively.

‘And that’s the end of him. Or her, I suppose. It’s hard to tell with a weed, don’t you agree?’

‘Absolutely,’ said the reporter, laughing again. The cameraman smiled. Priceless footage. A TV natural. The Saint made their job easy.

Saint held the reporter’s gaze. ‘It’s rude of me, I’m sorry, what’s your name again?’

‘Tanu,’ said the reporter.

‘That’s it – Tanu. What a lovely name. So, tell me Tanu, what can I possibly tell you that you don’t already know?’

‘Do you ever lie?’

‘I’d be lying if I said no. But in the big things I tell the truth. My word is trusted. And in my trade trust goes a long way.’

‘Do you believe Mayor Linton has been lying about the true number of plague deaths as protesters claim?’

‘How should I know? I’m just a humble builder.’

‘So could the conspiracy theories be true?’

‘I’m not saying they’re untrue. Anything’s possible these days.’

‘Is it true you have a drink problem?’

‘Only when I’m pissed.’

‘What about drugs?’

‘Why, have you got some?’

‘You are best known for Nude Entrepreneur. Can a reality TV judge be a serious candidate for Mayor?’

‘Look at the opinion polls. And don’t forget, I was successful long before that show. Came up from nothing, London Irish through and through. I am this city’s story, Tanu – as perhaps are you.’

‘Does owning a property empire make you a man of the people?’

‘The point is, I build things,’ said Saint, ‘and not just buildings. I have know-how. I know how and I know who. I can deal with the government. I can handle the Tube unions. I can sort out the Met police. This city has been ravaged by disease. It needs a new Mayor who can think big and build big, and break a few rules if he has to. It needs a truly independent Mayor unconnected to the political establishment and its slow and muddled ways. I believe that someone is me. Now, let’s have a look inside.’

Saint ushered Tanu towards the entrance to the block. They walked in step together, the cameraman scuttling backwards before them.

‘Ask me anything, Tanu,’ said Saint. ‘My life is an open book.’

Tanu fought to keep a foolish grin at bay. The reception area was small and little more than functional, though an artificial palm tree lounged next to the lift and a framed photo adorned a wall. It showed a beaming Saint with a beaming Sikh family in front of their newly built home.

Kevin, small, perky and in his early middle years, called the lift as Saint said, ‘Now, I’m just thinking Tanu. Put me straight if I’ve got this wrong. What do I need to win? A million first preference votes, you think?’

‘A million would probably do it,’ Tanu replied.

‘A million votes!’ said Saint. ‘I mean, imagine that – a million people, more than a million – would want me to be their leader! What an honour! What a privilege!’

‘It would be quite a win,’ Tanu agreed. ‘And a shock to the political system.’

‘Wouldn’t it, Tanu? If there’s an Irish bar in Heaven my old ma and pa would be in there slurping the Murphys. What do you think, Kev?’

‘Not in doubt Saint,’ Kevin confirmed. His phone rang. He looked at it. ‘Excuse me,’ he said and took the call.

‘Lovely manners he’s got,’ said Saint. ‘Been with me since he was a lad. I don’t hire riff-raff.’

‘Fuck me,’ Kevin told his caller. ‘Right, OK. And no idea what caused it? All right. Got it. I’ll brief him.’

Kevin hung up. ‘A word in your shell-like boss,’ he said and beckoned Saint back outside.

‘Better do as I’m told, Tanu,’ said Saint. ‘Don’t go away.’

He followed Kevin, leaving Tanu and the cameraman alone.

‘What do you think?’ said Tanu.

‘Is he drunk do you mean?’

‘Ha, ha! I suppose.’

‘Hard to know.’

‘Isn’t it always?’

Buy Frightgeist either directly from this website or from independent bookseller Pages of Hackney.

John Vane is a pen name used by On London publisher and editor Dave Hill. Follow John on Twitter.

Categories: Culture
Tags: Frightgeist, John Vane, London Fiction, Lorraine Linton, On London Books, Saint Devine

BBC London journalists to strike again over proposed cuts

The dispute with the corporation's management continues in the wake of the Boris Johnson-led government's decision to freeze the licence fee
Dave Hill

BBC London journalists are to go on strike this Wednesday and Thursday in a continuation of their campaign against management plans to reduce the number of local programmes broadcast and cut jobs.

Members of the National Union of Journalists (NUJ) will form picket lines on both days outside BBC Broadcasting House, joining fellow BBC local staff in similar action across England.

The BBC announced last autumn its intention to axe local network programmes on weekday afternoons from 2pm as well reducing night time and weekend output, and to replace them with wider regional or national output.

The corporation argued at the time that its changes would enable about £19 million to be put into a new “digital-led” multimedia operation for England, but critics claim  distinctive and irreplaceable coverage of local issues will be lost.

This will be the second time BBC London staff and counterparts elsewhere in the country have withdrawn their labour over the issue, having held a one-day strike in March (pictured) followed by a work to rule.

Cuts to the BBC’s World Service have also been drawn up following the decision in January 2022 of now former culture secretary Nadine Dorries during the prime ministership of ex-Mayor of London Boris Johnson to freeze the BBC licence fee for two years .

The NUJ said last week that a survey of its BBC Local members across the country in television, radio and online had found that 93 per cent of them no longer have confidence in the corporation’s senior leadership.

The BBC’s plans for changing its local output have drawn expressions of concern from current London Mayor Sadiq Khan, minister for London Paul Scully and Scully’s fellow London MP Julia Lopez in November 2022 during her second period as a minster with the Department for Culture, Media and Sport.

Twitter: Dave Hill and On London.

On London and its writers need your backing. Give £5 a month or £50 a year and receive in return the weekly newsletter On London Extra and (at no additional charge) invitations to events featuring eminent Londoners. Pay using any of the “donate” buttons on the site, by becoming a paid subscriber to my Substack, or directly into the company bank account. Email davehillonlondon@gmail.com for details. Thanks. Dave Hill.

Categories: News
Tags: BBC London News, Julia Lopez, Paul Scully, Sadiq Khan

Camden: Labour holds South Hampstead seat with reduced majority

The Liberal Democrats and Greens ate into Labour's margin while the Tory vote share was also reduced
Lewis Baston

There have been two by-elections in Camden since the May 2022 borough contests. The first came just two months later, caused by a surprised Labour winner quickly standing down. A Liberal Democrat picked up the seat. The second was yesterday in the South Hampstead ward at the other end of the long, straight drag of Fitzjohn’s Avenue and across Swiss Cottage junction. it came about after Labour’s Will Prince, first elected in 2022, resigned because his career was taking him to the United States.

The South Hampstead area was built up in the last quarter of the 19th Century. East of Priory Road, the land was owned by the Maryon Wilson family, whose legacy is better known in Woolwich because it the uncanny parks just west of the town centre which take its name. The plan for the suburb involved long, curved roads and large houses with gardens, the latter echoed in the “Gardens” street names. There were also a few mansion blocks in the mix.

Over the next century many of the houses were broken up into flats, and the streets are today densely populated with young professionals living in privately rented two-bedroom apartments. The area west of Priory Road up to West End Lane was built up in a more conventional style by the Cotton Estate, looking more to West Hampstead than Swiss Cottage.

Over in the east, on the slope between the Gardens and Swiss Cottage, there is some mid-century council housing, such as the 1950s Harben Road estate. The Jubilee line between West Hampstead and Swiss Cottage stations curves around the north and east, while South Hampstead station is served by the Overground in and out of Euston.

The area is not as exclusive as the town on the upper reaches of the hill – it lies on the other side of Finchley Road and has an NW6 postcode. But it is, even so, a desirable and expensive inner suburb with some of the celebrity and intellectual heft of Hampstead proper – it has been home to T.S. Eliot, Walter Sickert, Lindsay Anderson and the recently departed Barry Humphries.

In the inter-war period South Hampstead was part of the central European exile community known as Finchleystrasse, and there is still a Jewish flavour to the neighbourhood (8-9 per cent of the population, a bit less than on the NW3 side of the Strasse). The 2021 Census shows that South Hampstead is a hard-working, youthful and highly-educated ward. In the core of the ward, the Gardens streets, 73 per cent have degrees.

South Hampstead is the successor to the previous Swiss Cottage ward, which was a perennial marginal with a slightly perverse streak to it. Labour could win it when the party was doing well, but also lose there even when there was not a strong movement against the party, as in 1974, 1990 and in the case of one of the seats in 1998.

Counts have often gone down to the wire, with the third seat in the ward decided by very small numbers of votes: there were two-figure margins every time between 1986 and 1998. In good Conservative years Swiss Cottage was not even competitive, and the party hasn’t been an even halfway good one since 2010. Yet it took until 2018 for Labour to gain Swiss Cottage, and still by only 93 votes for the last seat.

The South Hampstead ward was created by the boundary changes for 2022. It differs from Swiss Cottage in not extending east of Finchley Road and by coming a bit closer to West Hampstead station. The changes were probably somewhat favourable to Labour, but not enough to change the basic alignment of the ward, which resembles the version of Swiss Cottage that existed between 1978 and 2002. Last year’s Labour win was its biggest in the area’s history, with the party securing 54 per cent of the vote, compared with the Conservatives’ 31 per cent and 14 per cent for the Lib Dems.

The electors of South Hampstead were offered high quality candidates for the by-election. Labour’s bid to hold the ward was led by Tommy Gale, who seems to be an energetic public advocate. He works as a social worker in Enfield, serves as vice chair of Enfield UNISON and in his spare time has founded an organisation called Inside Uni, which assists students from non-privileged background with putting their best foot forward when applying to Oxbridge. Gale also plays keyboards in a band called Fonn.

The Conservative was more qualified to use the “Local Conservative” flag of convenience on the ballot paper than most who have availed themselves of the option. Don Williams represented Swiss Cottage from 2002 until the Tories lost it in 2018. He was the first Camden councillor of Jamaican heritage and one of his successes came at the expense of your correspondent, who contested the ward in the Labour interest in 2010.

I remember delivering leaflets in the area and running into Williams having a cup of tea with his ward colleague Andrew Marshall at a café at the south end of Fairhazel Gardens, having done some of their own campaigning. I stopped for a chat in which I was professionally realistic about my chances of unseating either of them. Camden politics can be an amiable business.

Williams was certainly familiar to and with the electorate of South Hampstead, and probably the best candidate the party could have run. The Green party candidate was another experienced former Camden councillor, Lorna Jane Russell, who had previously represented the nearby Fortune Green for Labour. She defected to the Greens in 2021. Russell works in public affairs and strategic communications. The Lib Dem candidate Patrick Stillman is in the interesting field of financial crime compliance analysis.

The principal local issue was the planned redevelopment of the O2 Centre, a 1990s shopping centre and cinema which stands just outside the ward north of Finchley Road underground station. The O2 had never quite achieved the destination status originally intended and the large site, with a car park stretching most of the way over to West Hampstead, is not very efficiently used.

Labour councillors with the exception of the outgoing Will Prince, had supported the scheme but opposition parties objected on various grounds, such as density, loss of amenities and traffic (on the last point, residents can count themselves fortunate that an eight-lane motorway once planned to pass through this gap in the streetscape as part of the Ringway project was cancelled in the 1970s).

South Hampstead was the first election held in London where people had to produce photo ID before being allowed to vote at a polling station. It is as well to be cautious about the impact of this change until proper studies have been published. In the case of South Hampstead, its electorate is very likely to have an eligible document as only two per cent lack a passport.

Gale held the seat for Labour despite a big drop in the party’s vote share to 35 per cent. In taking on councillor duties as well as his other activities his victory seems a case of “if you want something done, ask a busy person”. His 882 votes put him 116 ahead of Williams, still a solid margin by historic Swiss Cottage standards. The Conservative share too dropped compared with last May, though albeit only slightly.

All the progress was made by the Lib Dems, who came a respectable third (531 votes, 21.5 per cent) and by the Greens (295 votes, 11.9 per cent) who did not contest the ward in 2022. Partly for that reason, the result was better than it looked for Labour. Turnout was 30.2 per cent, reasonable for a local by-election.

Twitter: Lewis Baston and On London.

On London and its writers need your backing. Give £5 a month or £50 a year and receive in return the weekly newsletter On London Extra and (at no additional charge) invitations to events featuring eminent Londoners. Pay using any of the “donate” buttons on the site, by becoming a paid subscriber to my Substack, or directly into the company bank account. Email davehillonlondon@gmail.com for details. Thanks. Dave Hill.

Categories: Analysis
Tags: Camden Council, Conservatives, Green Party, Labour, Liberal Democrats

Interview: Deputy Mayor for Housing Tom Copley on why London deserves greater devolution

One of Sadiq Khan's key team members thinks the co-operation between City Hall and London's boroughs and housing associations to get affordable homes built proves that the capital deserves more autonomy from national government
Dave Hill

Sadiq Khan’s recent announcement that the government’s target for getting affordable homes started has been hit is, according to his deputy for housing and residential development, not only a credit to the Mayor but also an argument for greater devolution of powers from Whitehall to London government.

Tom Copley, a former Labour London Assembly member who began doing his present job in early 2020, believes the success with affordable homes programme funding secured from the government was allocated and building work got underway has demonstrated the ability of City Hall, London’s housing associations and London’s boroughs to work together effectively. Why not, then, give the capital’s regional and local authorities more freedom to do even better?

“Having local relationships has been hugely beneficial with housing associations and with councils,” Copley says. He refers both to those formed by Greater London Authority officer colleagues and his own. “The relationships I have with either the housing associations – chief executives and senior leaders – and with the leaders of London’s councils have helped us to drive forward development and to solve problems as we get there”.

He draws a contrast between how the Khan administration has distributed its first programme funding – £4.8 billion provided in two portions between 2016 and 2018 – and the approach of national housing and regeneration body Homes England, citing in particular his and the Mayor’s enthusiasm for new council homes.

Finance for the boroughs was dealt with through the bespoke Building Council Homes for Londoners prospectus published in May 2018. The 23,000 council dwellings started since then, many of which have also been completed, have been strongly promoted by the Mayor – who, famously, was brought up in a council house – as a flagship achievement.

“It is a marked departure and difference from the rest of the country,” Copley says. “We gave higher grant rates per unit to councils, reflecting the fact that they were getting back into the business of housing delivery after several decades of not being able to”. He also picks out the Mayor’s right to buy back scheme (“unique to London”) and, looking forward, mentions the £4 million Land for Councils Homes Revenue Fund, which has helped 12 boroughs so far, “which is going to help them get out into the land market and find more land to build on”.

Copley thinks the way Mayor Khan has been using his existing powers “builds the case for further powers to be devolved”. He stresses that the sums negotiated with the government came with a lot of conditions attached, including about what categories of “affordable” dwellings they could be put towards. “It’s not as though we’ve got total freedom within the devolved settlement that we’ve currently got”.

A second affordable homes programme, providing £4 billion for 2021-2026, is now underway. Needless to say, Copley would like a lot more money from the government – work for the GLA by Savills concluded that £4.9 billion is required every year between 2023/24 and 2027/28 to meet need. But an ideal, much bolder, devolution arrangement give help City Hall greater freedom to make the most of the resources at its disposal.

“The biggest prize of all is fiscal devolution,” Copley says, and refers to the findings of the London Finance Commission, a group of experts initially brought together by Boris Johnson early in his second term as Mayor and reconvened, again chaired by Professor Tony Travers of the London School of Economics, by his Labour successor.

The commission has proposed that more control over all property taxes raised in London – council tax, stamp duty, business rates and so on – is handed down to London government, including, as it puts it in its 2017 update, powers to “set rates, revalue bands and offer discounts”, hold “periodic revaluations” of the domestic taxes and the devolution of “100 per cent of business rates” (see annex 4).

Movement has been modest. When the commission’s first report was published in May 2013, Johnson endorsed its findings though Copley is quick to observe that he seemed to forget about all that as soon as he was firmly installed at Number 10.

Under Rishi Sunak, City Hall is finding Michael Gove a more amenable secretary of state to work with than any of Johnson’s changing cast of housing ministers, notwithstanding the current PM’s repeated misrepresentation of Johnson’s affordable housing record. But it goes without saying that Copley hopes for far better things if, by the end of next year, Khan has been re-elected for a third mayoral term and Keir Starmer has become Prime Minister (and he extends that wish to Mayors elsewhere).

If put into full effect, the LFC’s ideas would not give London a larger share of the national tax pie but, crucially, far more self-determination in relation to the slice it gets. That, for Copley, would be a huge gain, and not only in relation to housing. He argues that if London was clearly in a position to raise at least half the money needed to, for example, extend the Bakerloo line, “it would make it easier to go to the government for the remainder”.

Specifically on housing, Copley thinks “there’s always going to be a need for some grant from central government” but he would relish being able to “raise much more of the funding we need for housing from some sort of devolved fiscal settlement”. The Mayor and his team also would like to have much greater command of skills training in the capital, helping to better marry qualifications with jobs vacancies including in the construction sector, and, with energy costs and climate change in mind, in relation to retrofitting and upgrading domestic properties.

The GLA has administered the Warmer Homes Programme, but, says Copley, “we don’t have the capital funding or the powers to deliver a deep retrofit programme”. He calls London’s housing stock “some of the oldest and draughtiest in the country” and says the retrofitting needed is not “deliverable through the private sector or through private individuals”. Put the cash at London’s disposal, however, and things could be very different he thinks, including by influencing the extremely hard choices many housing associations are having to make between “bulldozing housing because it is very energy inefficient and very costly to upgrade” and retrofitting instead.

Other mayoral aspirations for housing include what Copley calls “a sort of Ofsted-style regime for housing associations” to monitor standards and a possible City Hall housing delivery operation to go alongside, rather than compete with, existing providers. He concludes: “We’ve proved we can deliver with the powers and responsibilities we’ve already got. The government should devolve more powers and responsibilities so we can make these decisions by ourselves. As you know, we are one of the most centralised democracies in the world. In terms of the outcomes, I don’t think we are the better for it.”

Twitter: Tom Copley, Dave Hill, On London.

On London and its writers need your backing. Give £5 a month or £50 a year and receive in return the weekly newsletter On London Extra and (at no additional charge) invitations to events featuring eminent Londoners. Pay using any of the “donate” buttons on the site, by becoming a paid subscriber to my Substack, or directly into the company bank account. Email davehillonlondon@gmail.com for details. Thanks. Dave Hill.

 

 

Categories: Analysis
Tags: affordable housing, Boris Johnson, council housing, housing, Michael Gove, Sadiq Khan, Tom Copley, Tony Travers

Enfield: Cockfosters station car park housing scheme set to progress

The government has decided not to 'call in' the council's decision to approve to Transport for London plans after former transport secretary Grant Shapps blocked them
Dave Hill

Plans to build over 350 new homes on the car park of Cockfosters station look set to progress having previously been controversially blocked by the now former transport secretary Grant Shapps.

Labour-run Enfield Council has announced that the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities (DLUHC) “has decided not to call in” the scheme and potentially override the February 2022 decision by the council’s planning to approve the scheme, only to have it vetoed by Shapps the following month using an obscure clause of the Greater London Authority Act (1999) relating to TfL “operational land”.

Section 163 of the Act requires TfL to secure the consent of the transport secretary for any change in ownership of its land, which the executing the plans, submitted by Connected Living, a partnership between Transport for London, which owns the land, and residential developer Grainger, would entail. Shapps refused on the grounds that the homes would render parking provision at the station “inadequate”.

On London understands that following the DLUHC’s decision TfL will submit a new Section 163 application to the Department for Transport, now led by Mark Harper, in the next few weeks and is keen to take forward the consented scheme, which at the time of Shapps’s intervention required only the finalisation of Section 106 community benefits conditions with Enfield officers in order to go ahead. However, there is no set timescale for the DfT to respond.

Enfield leader Nesil Caliskan welcomed the news that DLUHC has “upheld the original decision made by local councillors in the best interests of local people,” but also expressed “regret that so much time has been wasted when more good-quality housing is desperately needed by so many of our residents”.

The 40 per cent affordable scheme, which includes four tower blocks of up to 14 storeys in height, was approved on the casting vote of the planning committee chair in line with council officers’ recommendation though in the face of strong opposition by some local residents, local Labour MP Bambos Charalambous and Conservative neighbour Theresa Villiers, the MP for Chipping Barnet, who lobbied Shapps to step in.

The DLUHC decision represents a victory for Sadiq Khan’s policy of making use of TfL-owned land, including car parks, around transport hubs for building more homes and reinforces the impression that relations between City Hall and the Conservative government have improved since Shapps was moved to a different job and Michael Gove was restored as Secretary of State for Levelling Up.

Twitter: Dave Hill and On London.

This article was updated on 6 June 2023 with the information about a new Section 106 application.

On London and its writers need your backing. Give £5 a month or £50 a year and receive in return the weekly newsletter On London Extra and (at no additional charge) invitations to events featuring eminent Londoners. Pay using any of the “donate” buttons on the site, by becoming a paid subscriber to my Substack, or directly into the company bank account. Email davehillonlondon@gmail.com for details. Thanks. Dave Hill.

Categories: News
Tags: Bambos Charalambous, Cockfosters, Enfield Council, Grant Shapps, housing, Nesil Caliskan, Theresa Villiers, Transport for London