Evening Standard: "Build the homes that people want to solve our housing crisis"

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"Is London's housing now just a commodity or still the essential fabric of a community? It's strange how slowly the issue of housing in London, and its lack of affordability, has become a major political issue. It has been clear for decades that the current model of new housing in the capital doesn't work in the best interest of communities, and yet nobody has apparently been able to do much about it.

"City Hall estimates that we need to build an additional 50,000 new homes a year, a figure that we’re only halfway to reaching. Faced with such a shortfall in housing supply, it’s no wonder house prices have been going up and up, pricing more and more people out of the city.

"To afford your average London home, £526,000 in today's market, the average Londoner will need a 266 per cent pay rise, according to the National Housing Federation. Only those earning in excess of £100,000 are currently able to buy a home in more than half of London's boroughs.

"If the industry were able to ramp up supply by building new homes, which always seems impossible for some reason, then house prices may stabilise or even drop. But by restricting the supply of new homes, house prices stay high, valuations stay high and house-builders’ profits stay high in return."