Andrew Boff, that admirably independent-minded London Assembly Tory, is to lead an investigation into the possible "trickle down" benefits of building a greater proportion of large family houses in the capital compared with smaller ones and flats. The hypothesis is informed by compelling logic. About 40 percent of the more than 350,000 households on London boroughs' social housing waiting lists are seeking homes with four or more bedrooms. According to the GLA Strategic Housing Market Assessment, 200,000 London households are overcrowded. Both figures are rising.
Boff's case is that if you build a house with six bedrooms, an overcrowded household in need of that much space can move into it, making their previous four or five bedroom house available for a household desperate to move out of a three bedroom dwelling, and so on. "With overcrowding on the rise, it's time to look beyond how many homes are built to what size of home would solve the most housing need," he says.
The Boff review will also consider if Boris Johnson's family-sized homes target is high enough and if there ought to be "a temporary moratorium" on building smaller social rented homes. Questions? How much would such a shift in strategy help? How practical would it be to implement? I plan to keep track of Boff's interesting project. Read more about it here.
