Brian Paddick.

The shortage of housing, and of genuinely affordable homes in particular, isn’t just a crisis for individual Londoners; it has become a huge constraint on London’s economic growth.

Brian Paddick and the London Liberal Democrats would commit to a radical home building project which would see 360,000 new homes built in the capital over the next 10 years using existing brownfield sites.

As of May, the Mayor becomes the biggest landowner in London. This means a Mayor who is committed to home building, and social home building in particular, can remove 60% of the cost of getting homes built and charge significantly lower rents as a result.

Liberal Democrat Mayoral candidate Brian Paddick, said:

“If there is one thing that I care about more than policing it is fixing London’s housing crisis. Around half of the 360,000 homes would be social housing, or in old money, council houses. The other half would be affordable homes and this would be achieved through a ‘living rent’ standard, which means no Londoner would spend more than a third of their annual income on rent.”

It is important to note that despite the incumbent Mayor waxing lyrical about his house building achievements, just 17,800 homes were built last year which is only around half of the annual Mayoral target. Meanwhile, over the past 4 years, the average price of home for first time buyers in London has gone up by 12%.