please empty your brain below
I can't see the kill the rich, or blame the foreigners options.

Most people just was a room and a fast broadband connection, many Londoners just go home to sleep, out of the 24 hours they probably only spend 8 - 10 hours at home Mon-Fri, ultimately all you want is a secure base, where you aren't helping to make millionaire landlords rich, and can be thrown out at short notice.

| 27.10.15 - 7:11 a.m. | #

... how about lowering the population? If us singles can be herded together then surely couples (and singles, for that matter) could stop breeding at one, or a max of two (if they can afford it, and not drain the public purse AND if they agree to the kids having one bedroom), meaning they would need a smaller living space and there would be fewer people in the future clogging waiting lists?

Antipodean | 27.10.15 - 7:16 a.m. | #

They are already rebuilding Pinner and Harrow by stealth. For every large house they demolish they either fit in four or a block of flats. Big sheds become homes for any number of people
[Daily Mail article]

peewit | Homepage | 27.10.15 - 7:45 a.m. | #

Ealing Borough Council got their sewage team to tell them their estimate of how many people lived in the borough based upon how much (literally) crap was produced.

They compared these figure to the census and how much council tax was being paid, and found that yes.. the 'sewage' score was higher.

Conclusion? Lots of people living in outhouses, sheds, etc... But everyone still has to come inside the house to use the toilet.

Geofftech | 27.10.15 - 8:03 a.m. | #

Although most experts do strongly advocate 7, there is something to be said about building on golf courses given golf club membership is declining, and they are very poor uses of space.

Keep in mind too that Surrey has more land devoted to golf, than housing.

Andrew Bowden | Homepage | 27.10.15 - 8:24 a.m. | #

The first six suggestions sound like the results of a brainstorming session in the pub after a good evening's drinking. Or perhaps the results coming from a pro-government think tank.
But then maybe the two possibilities are probably the same group of people.

popartist | 27.10.15 - 9:10 a.m. | #

Encourage people to buy half-sunken narrow boats and moor them three and four abreast across the city's canals, without any security of tenure or official mooring, overwhelming the services that were only ever intended to cater for passing holidaymakers... and then even to let these hulks at exorbitant rents to even poorer sods... Oh, hang on, that's already happening.

And worse I recall reading recently that some blue skies thinker suggests we officially start building flats on massive pontoons on the canal - well, there are already offices.

Sarah | Homepage | 27.10.15 - 9:24 a.m. | #

Well Blue-Sky thinking can lead to some effective solutions:

How about introducing a deadly airborne virus that kills off around 1 in 10 of the population? That should release a lot of housing, very quickly, onto the market, leading to more affordable housing and solving the housing crisis. Additionally, such a virus would kill of the weaker members of society, those more likely to be costing the state money in terms of care or pensions, thus cutting the deficit too.

This would appear, on the surface, if you're a sociopath, a win-win situation.

Sykobee | 27.10.15 - 9:26 a.m. | #

A more sensible solution of course, is to allow councils to build their own social housing according to need instead of blocking this.

And as the first poster said - a lot of the younger people (and recently divorced people) just want a crash place - a "micro-flat" - to sleep off the partying/drinkingtoforget.

Sykobee | 27.10.15 - 9:35 a.m. | #

@Sykobee: if councils have sold off their land, on what do they build their own housing ? In my area (Dacorum, Herts) the council has built some new council housing, but only because it already owned the land. If it didn't, there is no way the council could have afforded to buy it.....

@Geofftech: in some suburbs, I'm not sure people *do* go inside to use the toilet....

Paul | 27.10.15 - 9:58 a.m. | #

The first poster remarked that "out of the 24 hours they probably only spend 8 - 10 hours at home Mon-Fri" Isn't there an opportunity there? I think on submarines it's known as "hot-bunking".

I fear proposal No 6 might be counterproductive as all those newly-thrown-together couples rediscover Felix Leiter's observation in "Diamonds Are Forever" that "nothing propinks like propinquity"

timbo | 27.10.15 - 10:31 a.m. | #

Numbers 1 and 3 are very tempting! :)

Cornish Cockney | 27.10.15 - 10:31 a.m. | #

How about a bedroom tax? Extended, of course, to everyone, not just social renters. And not just spare rooms either, but a fixed regular sum to be paid for every room used only for sleeping in. So bedsits are untaxed, and also bigger houses if you arrange that one person sleeps in the dining room and another in the study.

Malcolm | 27.10.15 - 11:19 a.m. | #

You had me nodding in agreement with suggestions 1-6, but suggestion 7? Never heard anything so stupid in all my life.

Arctic Troll | 27.10.15 - 11:24 a.m. | #

So with whom would you wish to be 'paired' for option 6?

Can't see option 7, which is sensible, being implemented under the present government. Shame. Maybe if the new Mayor of London was a Corbynite Labour party member?

Bronchitikat | Homepage | 27.10.15 - 11:50 a.m. | #

32 boroughs +1

My thoughts on expanding London are that the U.K. will only ever become fairer if a decentralised federal system of regions is established.

Regions which receive a percentage of the tax wealth created in them, rather than waiting for it to doled out by Central Government.

Certainly, districts like Epping Forest District, Epsom & Ewell, Broxbourne & Spelthorne are part of London and should ergo become London Boroughs.

IsarSteve | 27.10.15 - 1:26 p.m. | #

I think you just described Singapore, DG.

Tony (Somerset) | 27.10.15 - 2:26 p.m. | #

1 and 3 are very agreeable, 4 should be as big as M25 IMHO, 7 is fantasy (politicians are probably fed by flat mongers), while I wonder whether our most valued blogger is going to pioneer on 6.

Patrickov | 27.10.15 - 2:36 p.m. | #

I don't think DG needs to pioneer flat-sharing. It is a well-established living arrangement which seems to suit some people very well. For others it turns out disastrously; but it should really only prosper as one choice among others, rather than as any sort of nationally or municipally-promoted gimmick.

Malcolm | 27.10.15 - 3:08 p.m. | #

Herbert Morrison, Labour leader of the London County Council way back when, is supposed to have said he was going to 'build the Tories out of London' when he embarked on the huge expansion of council home building. What we're witnessing now is the Tories reversing that process, not by building but by appropriating social housing into the private market.

Of course local authorities should build more social housing, particularly on publicly owned land, but central government makes it virtually impossible for them to do so. Worse still, their budgets are being cut so much they're pretty well forced to 'work with' private developers who certainly won't be building any genuinely affordable social housing.

ActonMan | 27.10.15 - 5:16 p.m. | #

"Flatshares"...are they posh bedsits? "Houseshares"...posh HIMOs? Wow times must be bad!

Working Class Hero | 27.10.15 - 7:23 p.m. | #

"The first poster remarked that "out of the 24 hours they probably only spend 8 - 10 hours at home Mon-Fri" Isn't there an opportunity there? I think on submarines it's known as "hot-bunking"."

And in areas such as this where there is a high E European population, it's a normal state of affairs.

2 or 3 shifts, each uses the bed left warm by the last.

There is one new estate of 3 bed houses where a local fireman I know reckons that there are between 12 and 16 adults living in each house.

| 27.10.15 - 7:32 p.m. | #

Of course, in order to understand the current planning situation, one must understand the planning policies of sucessive governments in the past few decades.

| 27.10.15 - 7:32 p.m. | #

Aha, another of DG's brilliantly clever articles that aren't quite what they seem to be.

So it's a case of six outrageous 'Alf Garnett' overcheer policies all intended to make the seventh, the real payload, seem so much more reasonable than if just served up cold? I do hope so !

In which case, I'll be a devil’s advocate and splash some monosodium glutamate all over it to bring out the full flavour:-

6 (b) Voluntary Euthanasia
Just for those over 70, with this slowly becoming the default and then compulsory, and the age going down to 50.

I had hoped that the buggy post was such an example of an agent provacateur type of article designed to stop and make people think, but I sadly I fear that it may not have been...

Gerry | 27.10.15 - 8:25 p.m. | #

Or the most obvious one, get rid of at least a third of the green belt.

If you built on 10% of the green belt within the M25 you could build a million houses.

Rational Plan | 27.10.15 - 8:50 p.m. | #

so, DG, does this mean that you are going to take 2 flat-sharers of your own to help pay your rent increase

| 27.10.15 - 8:56 p.m. | #

Rational Plan above has clearly swallowed the industry line that if only there was a bit more land available, everything in the housing garden would be rosy. It isn't so - without other interventions (along the lines of nr. 7) any portion of the Green Belt given up for housing would just be filled with more poshflats designed to stay empty and increase owners' fortunes without bothering with messy tenants.

Malcolm | 27.10.15 - 9:43 p.m. | #

I think that the banks and the bankers and all the rest of the *ankers should be moved to Twatt or somesuch fitting place.

O.H. | 27.10.15 - 10:12 p.m. | #

Very amusing as ever DG, but to be serious. One reason we have a housing crisis is that older people want to hang on to too large homes as keeping one's capital in the housing market seems the safest bet especially as interest rates are so low. I should know: my missus divorced me and I paid her off so as I could keep living in the 18 room house. Absurd but true.

Sad old guy | 27.10.15 - 10:22 p.m. | #

Rational Plan should be aware that Logan`s Run sets a precedent for euthanasia at age 30.

Roehamster | 28.10.15 - 6:42 a.m. | #

As Robert Elmes says on Radio London, tower blocks are not the answer, but high density flats of 4 floors and above is best for a City. There's no room for all that wasteland between towers.

Alex Mckenna | 28.10.15 - 10:14 a.m. | #

It's clear Malcolm relies on cheap populism not reliant on facts. The number of unoccupied properties in the UK have declined over the last 10 years from 700,000 to 600,000.

Almost no one leaves property empty for longer than a few months. The chief reason for London's housing crisis is the population increasing by over a million in 10 years, not a few thousand foreign investors.

Rational Plan | 28.10.15 - 1:39 p.m. | #

This is a difficult one. It really makes no sense for poor people (like the ones constantly being featured in the Evening Standard) to live in London and be subsidised by councils/government, but they can't be forcibly moved either

JQ | 28.10.15 - 4:43 p.m. | #

"It really makes no sense for poor people to live in London" is one of the saddest phrases I've read in some time.

diamond geezer | Homepage | 28.10.15 - 5:30 p.m. | #

Yeah, but it does make sense for them to be paid a proper wage for a day's work, then they wouldn't be 'poor' and need 'subsidies'.

Still, things are changing it that sphere too. If a company isn't viable when people are paid properly for the work they do, it shouldn't be in business. Why should the rest of us subsidise shareholders' dividends?

And I come back to my usual call that no-one in a company should ever be paid more than twenty times the lowest paid worker.

Blue Witch | Homepage | 28.10.15 - 6:06 p.m. | #











TridentScan v2.10.0 | Privacy Policy