Conservative mayoral hopeful Festus Akinbusoye has unveiled plans to provide subsidised housing in inner London for Metropolitan Police officers and other key workers. The former Bedfordshire Police and Crime Commissioner, who is also a Westminster councillor, is competing to become the Tory candidate for Mayor of London.
Key worker housing plan
Mr Akinbusoye argued that high rental costs are pushing key workers out to the home counties or preventing them from starting families in the city. Under the policy, key workers could be provided a subsidised home for the first three years of their career.
The average starting salary for a Metropolitan Police officer is around £43,000, but typical private monthly rent in London is £2,272 a month, according to recent data from the HomeLet Rental Index. Mr Akinbusoye said he would set up a housing delivery unit in City Hall and work with developers and other bodies to build the properties.
Addressing housing shortage
“When a lot of Londoners complain that we don’t have Met officers who live in London, who know London, it’s not because the Met doesn’t want to recruit from London, it’s because people can’t afford to live in London”, Mr Akinbusoye said. He added that there are some “pockets” of key worker homes in the capital, managed by housing associations, “but we need a lot more so we can get the police officers, the nurses, the teachers, the key workers living in London because we have a demand here and all of those cost pressures push people out”.
“Maybe it would be for the first three years of your career,” he said. “Because for many of these jobs in the public sector, you don’t make the most money in the first year or two but then it starts to increase rapidly after that. I think we can do it so you are going to be in there for three years, you then have to move on, but by then you should be able to move up the income ladder.”
Affordable housing targets scrapped
Mr Akinbusoye said he would also scrap affordable housing targets in London, with the allocation each scheme has to provide being assessed on a case by case basis. He argued the targets are putting off developers from building homes altogether and further exacerbating the city’s housing shortage.
“If we don’t sort this issue, seeing a five year old in London in ten to twenty years time will be like seeing a Dodo because anyone of child rearing age won’t be able to afford to live here,” he said.
Ex-Foreign Secretary Sir James Cleverly, the MP for Braintree and a former London Assembly member, is the favourite to be selected as the Tory mayoral candidate, having already won the support of more than half the Conservative councillors in London. He faces competition from Mr Akinbusoye, chair of the London Assembly Andrew Boff and businessman Alex Challoner. A final candidate is expected to be chosen in December.
