Londoners are getting desperate over rising rents, with residents and students taking to the streets and social media over the cramped conditions tenants are forced to accept.
With house-building lagging well behind the population increase in western Europe’s biggest city, prices are soaring beyond anything affordable.
“The situation is becoming untenable,” said retired teacher John Ford, 60, who joined a 2,000-strong protest this month against the government’s new housing bill, which would radically alter public housing and the rights of its tenants.
“My nephew is a young surgeon. He cannot afford, on his salary, to buy a house in London. So this crisis is beginning to eat into the middle class,” he said.
Latest figures show the average London house price was ￡514,097 (US$745,749) in December last year — a year-on-year rise of 12.4 percent — compared with a 6.4 percent increase to ￡188,270 across England and Wales.
The London-wide median rent is ￡122 per week for a room in a shared home; ￡276 for a one-bedroom property and ￡402 for a three-bedroom home.
Many “generation rent” young professionals, whose parents bought comfortable homes in their early 20s, have given up on their dream of ever affording a property in London.
Students are also feeling the crisis bite.
At University College London, more than 150 students have gone on a rent strike. One of the university’s dormitories has rooms costing as much as ￡262 per week.
London’s population is at a record high of 8.6 million and growing at about 100,000 per year.
A total of 25,994 new homes were built in London last year, down 9 percent on the previous year.
“People in the lowest-paid jobs have to live on the outskirts of London,” Green Party leader Natalie Bennett told reporters. “We’re now hearing of junior doctors, nurses and teachers having to commute from outside.”
Commuting from outer London is not without cost in time and stress, let alone money. An annual travel pass from the city limits costs ￡2,364.
Part of the problem is wealthy foreign buyers snapping up high-end new developments as a safe investment and leaving them empty while they accrue value.
“Buy-to-leave is dreadful, but the real issue is what’s being built: homes designed for just that,” Bennett said. “Let’s provide genuinely affordable, secure homes for people.”
The outrage over rising rent is fed with regular stories in local newspapers about tenants being offered bedrooms in closets under stairs or in corners of living rooms, or matchbox-sized houses selling for astronomical amounts.
A flat dubbed the “least expensive” in London, measuring just 7m2, last month sold for ￡79,000 in east London’s Clapton.
With the price of the average London property going up by ￡10,682 in December last year alone, the issue is set to continue to stoke controversy.
BACKLASH: The National Party quit its decades-long partnership with the Liberal Party after their election loss to center-left Labor, which won a historic third term Australia’s National Party has split from its conservative coalition partner of more than 60 years, the Liberal Party, citing policy differences over renewable energy and after a resounding loss at a national election this month. “Its time to have a break,” Nationals leader David Littleproud told reporters yesterday. The split shows the pressure on Australia’s conservative parties after Prime Minister Anthony Albanese’s center-left Labor party won a historic second term in the May 3 election, powered by a voter backlash against US President Donald Trump’s policies. Under the long-standing partnership in state and federal politics, the Liberal and National coalition had shared power
CONTROVERSY: During the performance of Israel’s entrant Yuval Raphael’s song ‘New Day Will Rise,’ loud whistles were heard and two people tried to get on stage Austria’s JJ yesterday won the Eurovision Song Contest, with his operatic song Wasted Love triumphing at the world’s biggest live music television event. After votes from national juries around Europe and viewers from across the continent and beyond, JJ gave Austria its first victory since bearded drag performer Conchita Wurst’s 2014 triumph. After the nail-biting drama as the votes were revealed running into yesterday morning, Austria finished with 436 points, ahead of Israel — whose participation drew protests — on 357 and Estonia on 356. “Thank you to you, Europe, for making my dreams come true,” 24-year-old countertenor JJ, whose
NO EXCUSES: Marcos said his administration was acting on voters’ demands, but an academic said the move was emotionally motivated after a poor midterm showing Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr yesterday sought the resignation of all his Cabinet secretaries, in a move seen as an attempt to reset the political agenda and assert his authority over the second half of his single six-year term. The order came after the president’s allies failed to win a majority of Senate seats contested in the 12 polls on Monday last week, leaving Marcos facing a divided political and legislative landscape that could thwart his attempts to have an ally succeed him in 2028. “He’s talking to the people, trying to salvage whatever political capital he has left. I think it’s
A documentary whose main subject, 25-year-old photojournalist Fatima Hassouna, was killed in an Israeli airstrike in Gaza weeks before it premiered at Cannes stunned viewers into silence at the festival on Thursday. As the cinema lights came back on, filmmaker Sepideh Farsi held up an image of the young Palestinian woman killed with younger siblings on April 16, and encouraged the audience to stand up and clap to pay tribute. “To kill a child, to kill a photographer is unacceptable,” Farsi said. “There are still children to save. It must be done fast,” the exiled Iranian filmmaker added. With Israel
RSS