Building more houses is not the answer

On 9 May the Mayor of London launched a consultation, called “Towards a new London Plan”, about the overall strategic plan for how London should grow and develop over the next 20 to 25 years. 

The strategy will include policies for housing, transport, and the environment in London. London boroughs will have to ensure their own plans fit with it. On housing at least the approach looks flawed from the outset.

The consultation includes suggestions for building on green belt land within Greater London. The message from the mayor’s office is that there is a housing crisis and we must build our way out of it.

It is common to hear Londoners say, “Building more houses is not the answer”. This reflects widespread unease that many of London’s new houses are not affordable by Londoners. And no amount of building seems to diminish the waiting list or the number of homeless in London.

Waiting lists

Over 336,000 households in London are on local authority waiting lists for social housing in 2024 according to government data. This is the highest figure for more than a decade, a 32 per cent increase since 2014. London accounts for 25 per cent of the total number of households in England waiting for social housing.

London borough councils overspent their 2024-25 homelessness budgets by £330 million; their spending increased by 68 per cent in a single year! According to the most recent data more than 183,000 people are homeless and living in tempo. The situation is out of control and is leading to the financial collapse of councils. Housebuilding makes no impact on the waiting lists.

Although the present level of housebuilding in Britain is low compared to a few decades ago, London has seen significant housebuilding activity recently. Between 2014 and 2024 the stock of domestic properties registered in London for council tax (a useful proxy to measure housebuilding) grew from by 360,000 to 3.82 million, an increase of 10.3 per cent. Only the East Midlands had a higher growth rate in England, slightly higher at 10.6 per cent.

Growth is unevenly spread around London, with huge variation between boroughs. Tower Hamlets had the highest growth rate (more than any other local authority in England); its residential stock increased by 30,640 homes in a decade, over 26 per cent.

Despite this significant amount of new housing, Tower Hamlets has a long housing waiting list – fourth highest of the 31 London boroughs. And it remains in the top third of boroughs for households in temporary accommodation. As every borough in London has a higher proportion of households living in temporary accommodation than the average in England, that’s a dire position.

Mismatch

The complete mismatch between the houses built and “addressing the housing crisis” is evident in the Greater London Authority’s own recent data. This shows a mere 582 grant-funded affordable homes were started and 2,697 were completed in the capital in the first half of the 2024-25 financial year.

If Londoners see that building more houses is not the solution, there are at least three things that they would do.

Firstly, stabilise the population: it is hard to plan anything when you don’t know what you are planning for. This means control of migration – though many still shy away from discussing the topic.

Secondly, maintain the existing social housing stock: it is far cheaper to keep an existing property available than to build a new one.

Thirdly, stop the growing problem of tenancy fraud – another area where those charged with enforcing the law appear to have given up or declared themselves lacking the funds to do so.

The truthful answer to the question about the size of London’s population is that no one really knows. The Greater London Authority estimates the population at 8.9 million on its official website. However, the World Population Review, using the United Nations World Population Prospects  estimates that London’s population is 9,840,740 – a million more!

In January the Daily Telegraph obtained an analysis by Thames Water to help assess demand for its services, following a Freedom of Information request. This suggests that the equivalent of up to one in 13 of its 7 million users is an illegal migrant (Thames covers a different area from the GLA). The estimate ranges from 390,000 to 585,000, but in any case this is a significant figure compared with the total legal net migration into Britain in 2024 of 431,000.

Besides the limitations of official overall population data, other trends are affecting housing need. And in London one of these is dramatic – the exodus of families from inner London and the resulting fall in primary school pupil numbers.

For example over 30 per cent of primary places in Lambeth and Westminster are now unfilled. This leads to dire funding problems for those schools, prompting closures and amalgamations. 

Disrepair

The poor state of repair of many rented homes in the public and private rental sectors is not a new phenomenon A recent analysis from the Housing Ombudsman, reported in Workers, showed a fivefold rise in complaints about the state of housing.

Another key point of discussion among Londoners: what’s the point of building new homes if you cannot maintain your existing ones? Poor condition is one of the major reasons for existing council homes standing empty.

‘What’s the point of building new homes if you cannot maintain your existing ones? Poor condition is one of the major reasons for existing council homes standing empty…’

London has seen a two-thirds rise in the number of empty council homes since 2016 with one in 35 lying vacant in 2024. This astonishing figure reflects two major trends. One is the number of social housing units awaiting demolition because of their poor state, and the other simply that individual units need to be made habitable between tenants. Both trends derive from the underfunding of repair and maintenance of properties.

The recently released Tenancy Fraud Forum report highlights how few resources are devoted by councils, and even less by housing associations, to combating tenancy fraud. The report points out there is no national research on what is a nationwide problem. It estimates there are 50,000 tenancy frauds in London. That is an alarming figure and, like the population figures, no one really knows the true extent.

Alan Bryce, the author of the report, says: “Tackling this type of fraud is quicker and more cost effective than building the new homes needed to accommodate the approximately 70,000 London families in temporary accommodation.”

For example the research found one very quick and effective way for over 1,000 London social homes to be made available for those in genuine need would be if the short term, online holiday letting platforms adopted basic fraud prevention practices before advertising properties on their websites. In the report Bryce writes, “That they seem reluctant to do so, putting profit before communities, is to the detriment of all Londoners.”

It’s a telling comment. There are answers to London’s housing crisis but a reluctance to address them even among workers themselves.