TNAG-0523-FCO40-618-Visits-of-members-of-Urban-Council-from-Hong-Kong--to-UK-1975 — Page 72

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decline of private rented accommodation and the increasing cost of housing generally, caused by the soaring price of land, the higher profit margins available to the private contractor from other forms of development and a shortage of labour in the building industry, is causing great pressure for local authority accommodation and, in the extreme, homelessness. The net result is an inability of households to move to the type of housing they want and can afford in a suitable location. In present circumstances these ills can best be remedied:

(a) by ensuring that future building programmes are directed not just to

overcome the crude shortage but towards increasing the stock available to middle and low income households, which means a large scale public sector building programme;

(b) by rapidly taking privately rented accommodation into municipal

ownership, thereby protecting the tenants from the consequences of the present decline, and providing the chance to improve the stock;

(c) by rent rebates and subsidy.

This whole problem could be minimised and the necessary remedies made easier if there were a strict control over the market in land.

Programmes for rehabilitation, redevelopment and new building all depend upon the capacity of the building and construction industry to face the challenge. For this reason it will be necessary for public authorities in London to combine with the government and the industry to ensure that the scale and nature of building resources available is commensurate with the scale and nature of the necessary programme.

The scale and complexity of London's housing problems requires that all available effort and resources are mobilised in co-ordinated and agreed programmes for the whole of Greater London so that the effort and resources are directed to where they are most needed. As the strategic housing authority for London the Greater London Council will do this in close collaboration with the London Boroughs, the building industry and all other interested agencies.

GLC Old Persons Bungalows at Deal, Kent

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