Private tenants from across London held a “housewarming party” at a development of newly built private rented flats in Stratford, east London, on Saturday in protest at soaring private rents and the Government’s failure to tackle the problem.
The Let Down group says London rents have been rising at around 7% per year, eight times faster than wages.
The new flats in Stratford are flats are built and let by Genesis, which has been shortlisted to receive funding through a government subsidy scheme for private rented housing in three developments in London.
Rents in the occupied development, marketed as “Stratford Halo”, start from £1,700pcm for a two-bedroom flat. Let Down says the rent would only be affordable to families with an income of £76,000 or more.
Emma Bradshaw, one of the activists, said: “Private renting is expensive and gives people no security – the last thing we need is more of it. Rather than supporting developers to build expensive private rented housing that is only affordable to the very wealthiest, the government should bring in measures to keep rents under control and invest in good quality genuinely affordable social housing that gives ordinary people the security they need.”
In total, £1bn is being made available to developers to build new private rented properties as subsidised finance at an estimated minimum cost to the public purse of £90m. The government claims that the first £700m of the funding “has the potential to deliver between 8,000 and 10,000 new homes”.
Let Down says that if the £1bn was used to build social housing on publicly owned land, around 10,000 new homes could be built, with money recovered through the rents. This would also help to reduce the housing benefit bill, 40% of which it says now goes to private landlords as one in four private tenants currently needs housing benefit to afford their rent.
Comments