Thursday 19th June

There is a brown-field site just off the Isle of Dogs where we live.  For years it was a temporary car-park but now the hoardings have gone up and glamourous photo’s depicting London’s Sophisticated Living.  They are building yet another block of flats.  This one will have a partial view of the river (from some angles) just opposite to the Millenium Dome.  However right next door is the recycling centre and opposite is Wood Wharf, where planning permission has been given for high-rise office blocks to be built in the next decade.  We assume that this block will be pretty high as more than twenty floor blocks are all around.  Along with the sparkling photos is a declaration that 95% of the flats (or apartments as they are called) are already sold.  I can only assume that this is to generate some sort of demand for the remainder, though if 95% are already sold the other 5% should present no problem.

This is just another symptom of the problem with London’s housing market.  Too many foreign buyers, buying off-plan without even visiting the site (still unbuilt) or maybe even London.  They are seen as both an investment and a bolt-hole and maybe a way of hiding money from their own tax authorities.  But it buggers up the market (if there really is one) for UK residents.  House prices in London are rocketing and now even buy-to-let landlords are being priced out, let alone normal young people.  Schools and Hospitals are finding it difficult to attract staff as housing costs are so horrendous and normally this would temper the market, but this influx of foreign buyers means that prices keep rising.

So, the disparity between those who own their own homes (maybe lucky enough to have bought a few years ago) and those forced to rent will continue to widen.  London too is seen as a bell-weather for the rest of the country.  Let’s hope it doesn’t follow suit.  There is an easy solution, build far more houses and let councils build  more and more council houses.  But at the moment that seems not only unlikely but unthinkable.