News14.12.22by Ella JesselLondon has seen nearly 23,000 social homes demolished in the space of a decade, according to an analysis by a tenants’ federation.Picture: GettySharelinesLondon has seen nearly 23,000 social homes demolished in the space of a decade #UKhousing Research by the London Tenants Federation (LTF) found that there were double the amount of social homes demolished than new homes built, with just over 12,000 additional homes delivered in the past 10 years.
The federation calculated that if there had been no social housing demolitions, an additional 35,000 social rented homes would have been available for households in need of this tenure in the capital.
The analysis of delivery and loss of homes in the capital, which uses data from the Mayor of London’s online residential completions dashboard, provides a breakdown of boroughs with the highest and lowest number of demolitions.
Ealing in west London was the council with the most demolitions, at almost 5,000. Other boroughs with high demolition rates include Southwark with 4,000 demolitions, Hackney with 2,000, and over 1,000 in a further four boroughs. The LTF said that the demolitions, combined with the introduction of the affordable rent tenure a decade ago, “significantly contributed” to the increase in London’s backlog of need for social rented homes.
Brought in by the coalition government in 2010, affordable rent homes were let in the same way as social housing but enabled providers to charge up to 80% of market rents.
According to LTF, the mayor of London’s office assessed that the backlog had increased threefold from 61,000 in 2013 to 163,000 in 2017.
As a result, to meet need in London around 50% of new and additional homes delivered would have to be for social rent.
Some local authorities and housing associations are demolishing social homes because they are unsafe, yet many other London estates are being knocked down as part of wider regeneration schemes.
A London Assembly report last year found that redevelopment schemes involving demolition led to the net loss of 6,748 social homes since 2003. The research was led by Green Party assembly member Sian Berry, who also revealed that schemes in the pipeline would see the net loss of 6,791 more social and council homes.
Pat Turnbull, a housing association tenant representative from Hackney, has called for the mayor of London to ensure that proposals for social housing demolitions are rejected unless they are “structurally unsound”.
She added: “A sensible strategy in response to the government policy changes of 2012 would have been to protect as many social rented homes as possible.
“However, the demolition of 23,000 since then has simply escalated the problems, with increasingly high numbers of homeless families living in temporary or overcrowded homes.
“Money intended for building additional social rented homes is often used to replace demolished homes with replacements being at ‘affordable rents’ rather than the housing type actually needed. In addition, demolition and rebuild is almost certainly more expensive than the refurbishment.”
The mayor of London’s office has been contacted for comment.
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