Living in the shadow of St George
For six months, after our family home was flooded, I lived in the shadow of the St George’s Tower in Vauxhall courtesy of our insurance. A nice gig if you can get it, but finding a temporary flat with room for a toddler near to our nursery in Stockwell illustrated the shortage of family-sized homes in North Lambeth. The building has today been featured in The Guardian as a monument to London’s broken housing system.
Nicknamed ‘the deodorant can’ locally, the tower overshadows the river creating a wind tunnel that would almost blow me over when I tried to push my son in his buggy around it. I once tried to take a short cut past the front entrance of the tower, only to get chased out by a member of staff who clearly recognised that I wasn’t one of the resident oligarchs.
The development didn’t really resemble a home at all, but rather a luxury hotel. The gym which was visible from the river walkway remained largely unused. I would occasionally catch people looking around the place — it was either foreign investors seeking a foothold into the London market, or lost tourists trying to find where their AirBnB flat was for the weekend.
There were two classes of resident, and although there weren’t ‘poor doors’ like on some new developments, the concierges made it clear who the elite were. If a parcel arrived for you at reception and you were simply renting from one of the numerous agents operating, and not an owner, they made clear you couldn’t use their service. They even interrogated my status when I tried to get into the lift with my buggy when my key to open it didn’t work.
The community felt entirely unreal. I lived for a while in a 1 bedroom flat overlooking the river (yeah, poor me). The rent was an eye-watering £5,000 a month, well out of my budget, let alone most of my constituents who earn barely a quarter of that before food and other bills. If an uber wasn’t convenient, you could catch the riverboat shuttle taking you to offices near the Embankment or Canary Wharf.
I met the owner once. He had flown over from China to see how his place was doing. He told me he owned five other flats in the development netting him a tidy sum. He was particularly proud of this one with a view down the river to the Houses of Parliament.
While central Government and the former Mayor of London have failed to get a grip of the housing crisis, Lambeth Council are trying to do their bit. We pledged in May 2014 to build 1,000 new homes — at social rent, not the often misleading ‘affordable’ rent (80% of market value) which in places like Stockwell can be out of reach for most. We’re using a unique special purpose funding vehicle to make use of right to buy receipts and attract external investment to provide homes for local people.
This has been controversial in many cases — local residents don’t like the disruption of having to move from homes they have lived in for many years. But rebuilding estates — like the South Lambeth Estate in my ward — will create hundreds of new homes for those who have been languishing on the waiting list for years, as well as ensuring those who are overcrowded get the space and amenities they need.
The housing crisis isn’t just unjust and changing the social fabric of places like Stockwell and Vauxhall — it is also causing a recruitment crisis. Finding public sector workers like teachers and nurses who can afford to live in Lambeth is a huge challenge.
We need a system where new homes are affordable to Londoners on ordinary wages — and where they get the first chance to buy or rent them. That might mean increasing council tax for vacant properties and toughening up the planning system. In Sadiq Khan, we finally have a Mayor who is serious about tackling the crisis with homes for Londoners. His plan to establish Homes for Londoners — a dedicated agency to build new homes on vacant land such as that owned by TfL is another way to drive up supply.
We need to get back to a system where homes are somewhere to live, not something to be bought and sold like gold bars.
Alex Bigham is a Lambeth Councillor
