Hard Economics And Social Justice The Key To Winning Urban Areas

Written by Mike Tuffrey on Tue 1st Oct 2002

This May, only a few months after arriving at the GLA, I had the good fortune to be chosen to chair the London Assembly's new and high profile Economic and Social Development Committee. Immediately I set as my goal tackling the 'bread and butter' regeneration issues that matter to Londoners.

Take economic regeneration and housing. Polling in London shows this is rising as fast as health as an area of personal concern, albeit still behind crime, education and transport. The supply of new homes is falling well short of demand, forcing up prices obscenely and stopping millions getting a foot even on the lowest rung of the housing ladder.

In London we need between 32,000 and 43,000 new units a year for ten years, half of them 'affordable'. Currently we're only half way there. High costs are depriving public services of key workers and forcing up wages in the private sector.

Hard economics and social justice demand that the Liberal Democrats show how a big increase in the supply of housing can be achieved without the environmental disaster of concreting over the Green Belt. After five years, Labour has singularly failed to articulate any new vision as an alternative to the Conservatives' private ownership/right-to-buy obsession.

Partly it needs an increase in public investment, funded by capturing a bigger share of land development gains: not a knee-jerk call to put up taxes, but a negotiated share of major housing and commercial developments set aside for affordable housing.

Partly it needs a rejuvenated private renting sector: action to eliminate disreputable landlords and require owners to invest in old stock in dangerous disrepair. Shelter estimates that 1.4 of the expected 3.8 million new households by 2021 could come from private renting and has recommended 26 steps to make this possible.

Take economic regeneration and public spending. New developments that create jobs, build homes, invest in transport and improve the urban environment often need public expenditure 'pump priming' to make them viable. One example is cleaning up contaminated 'brown field' land. Rather than a general tax increase, we need focused mechanisms to capture a share of the wider wealth these developments create. When London's Jubilee Line opened after massive public investment, nearby private landholders gained a massive tax-free windfall in rising land values.

We need to learn from places such as Chicago where designated regeneration areas can have 'tax incremental financing': the public sector issues bonds to fund new infrastructure, with repayment based on predicted new prosperity captured in a specific local and time limited property tax.

In Los Angeles and New York among others, business improvement districts offer a broadly voluntary approach, where commerce in small local areas pay a tax supplement in return for better services such as policing, maintenance, cleaning or new facilities.

These are not new or untested ideas, just not championed loudly in Britain. I want to use my committee to push the profile of urban regeneration. Our work covers a broad range of issues, including affordable housing, unemployment, low pay, small firms, the City, inward investment and the impact of globalisation.

To help, I'm forming an informal 'brains trust' of people with a real expertise either from their professional or Council work or from personal interest. To learn more, please email me Mike.Tuffrey@london.gov.uk.

We must extend our appeal beyond the comfortable suburbs. Key groups such as young people and members of minority ethnic communities live disproportionately in urban areas. The need to articulate distinctive and very practical policies on regeneration is urgent.