I was born into a city where housing was affordable. But I've grown up into one where it was not. What has gone wrong in London over the last 35 years? And where is it going in the future? My new book, Homesick, tells that story. Out Sept 25 https://t.co/LpBQiEYP3f

Lovely review for Homesick in the Irish Times, which calls it "a brilliant capture of the recent history of housing" and "rich with voices of lived experience"

Oh yeah - sorry - forgot the only issue that matters in 2025 is house builder balance sheets! Scrap the overheating regulations we belatedly introduced three years ago and build on the flood plains (baby)

Chatting about it further at the Festival of Place Climate Resilience conference next Tuesday if anyone is about:

Anyway, this comes from research into the chapter 'Housing in the Anthropocene', in Homesick. Not the most uplifting bit of writing I've done, but important not to put our heads in the sand. These things could be mitigated with effort: https://t.co/q2gmPEQHyX

Then there is wildfire - London is a pretty green urban environment (which is nice), but this means a lot of very dense housing very close to large, vulnerable grass land. If when Wanstead Flats catches fire again its a windy day, I wouldn't want to be in Forest Gate

Basement flats at risk from surface water flooding is another serious problem. The city risks a New York style disaster if the rain comes at night - the current official estimate is 40 deaths in a foreseeable worst case scenario

Number one issue being overheating - London is the hottest part of the UK and will get hotter. But its housing is very poorly designed for this, both older homes and newer builds (overglazed, under ventilated and fitted with leaky heat networks)

Something we do not talk about enough with regard to London's housing crisis is climate change The combination of a hotter, wetter world and housing insecurity should be a very serious concern: https://t.co/h1XF4JeMth

Bit by me in the Big Issue on what they could (and should) be doing instead: https://t.co/N6kwbBuh2W

Although, sadly, given other news breaking today there is about as much chance of them doing so as there is Keir Starmer turning down a free concert ticket

Bit by me in the Big Issue: Municipalisation of private housing would be a fast, direct route out of the homelessness crisis. The government should support it https://t.co/N6kwbBuh2W

A coda: London has more than 20,000 families who have been in temporary accommodation for more than five years, compared to 1,460 in the rest of England combined. Housing people like this costs boroughs £4m+ every day. We could not pick a worse place to cut social housing numbers

For a mayor elected on a platform of 50% affordable housing, this is an extraordinary betrayal of his core voter. It's also further than the Conservatives ever went in cutting affordable housing numbers in London. Not a great look (ends)

On a day when Labour breaks the record (again) for child homelessness, it could not be a clearer statement of who and what their housing policy is for: giving private developers what they want in the vain hope that we will see economic growth as a result

Instead, this change will stoke up land prices again - which will be sold with an expectation of 10% affordable housing, which will make this policy nigh-on impossible to reverse in future years

My view is that the speculative, volume builder-led redevelopment of London has been *bad* for the city, and it's collapse is an opportunity to re-evaluate how we want developable land in London to be used, and who we want to own it

I'd go say as to say that the speculative London development model which defined the first half of the 2010s is over. But let's keep things in perspective. Berkeley, which operates almost exclusive in the London market made more than half a billion in profit last year:

... delays with the Building Safety Regulator as well as other additional requirements (which London desperately needs) around overheating and the mitigation of surface water flooding. So building is far less profitable currently than it was.

Off-plan sales have also fallen, there is less demand from landlords building portfolios and higher interest rates and the end of Help to Buy have dampened demand from first time buyers. At the same time, build costs have exploded and there have been major...

There is no point in pretending there isn't a problem in the market. House prices in London have been static since Brexit, and have actually been falling for flats as buyers move towards houses. 96% of London's new build market is flats.