South Kilburn and Housing

One of the reports coming up in Monday's Executive is an update on the South Kilburn regeneration. We are steadily replacing the run down blocks that make up the Kilburn estate by selling off some of the properties for private housing and ringfencing the rest to redevelop South Kilburn with a mix of affordable housing.

A major obstacle in this are the policies of the present government which, as Dave Hill points out, are likely to massively reduce affordable housing in London.  The government insists that to get a grant for redevelopment we need to massively raise rents to 80% of market levels.  We aren't prepared to do that not least because it would make it virtually impossible to decant the existing blocks.  Hence we need to use land sales to push the South Kilburn regeneration forward.

To give an idea of what the government is demanding.  The average rent for a one bedroom flat in South Kilburn is about £80 per week.  The government policy would be to raise this to about £200 per week.  For bigger properties, say four bedrooms, the government would like to quadruple the rent.  Implementing these sort of rises would effectively expel the current population of South Kilburn from the area.  As the Dave Hill piece also makes clear, the government is pushing housing associations to build more one bedroom properties and fewer bigger properties, when we already have a shortage of family housing.

I have always been sceptical as to whether David Cameron's Big Society is going to see the reinvention of Victorian philanthropy, but it certainly looks like recreating Victorian housing conditions.