KEN LIVINGSTONE has promised to introduce a London Living Rent scheme if elected as London Mayor next May, backed up by a not-for-profit lettings agency to provide an alternative to “rip-off” landlords.
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“What London needs is a London-wide non-profit lettings agency,” said Livingstone at the London Policy Conference, also attended by current mayor Boris Johnson.
“I want to end the churn-and-burn approach of some of the private letting agents. Renting has become a big rip-off that preys on the desperation of Londoners not in a position to buy.”
Since the 2008 credit crunch and the associated slump in the housing market, more people have entered the renting sector and this extra demand has sent prices in London shooting up by a whopping 30%.
Average rents are now over £1,000 a month.
Figures like these, as well as the hundreds of thousands of Londoners on housing waiting lists, form part of what Livingstone called Johnson’s “complete failure on housing”.
Johnson dismissed Livingstone’s proposals, saying they would be “devastating for the construction industry”.
Instead, Johnson favours subsidising the construction industry to meet his target of 55,000 new affordable homes by 2012.
