The mayor of London Sadiq Khan plans to hold an emergency summit on the private rented sector in the capital.
Khan has previously called on the government to hand him extra powers so he can cap rents in London.
The London mayor said the controls were needed to “fundamentally rebalance London’s private rented sector” and make it “fit for purpose”.
Resonding to Khan’s emergency summit on the PRS, Ben Beadle, chief executive of the National Residential Landlords Association, said: “It is disappointing in the extreme that the Mayor of London feels he can solve the challenges faced in the capital’s rental market without any input from those who actually provide the homes.
“The stark and simple reality is that whilst the demand for private rented housing in London continues to increase, the supply of such homes is falling. This is a direct consequence of Government policy aimed at shrinking the size of the sector, along with rhetoric from the Mayor that suggests private landlords are simply a problem to be managed.
“If the mayor wants to address the cost pressures faced by households across London, he needs to focus on boosting the number of homes available. Anything else would merely be tinkering with the symptoms of the challenges in the rental market, without tackling the root cause of them.”
Comments (5)
If Sadsack is as successful “rebalancing London’s private rented sector and making it fit for purpose” as he is at stopping knife crime, London renters and Landlords are DOOMED.
Sven Rydenfelt – “Next to bombing, rent control seems in many cases to be the most efficient technique so far known for destroying cities”.
Observation of the day: A politician is a person who talks with confidence about subjects he does not understand to people who understand & know even less.
A summit that will do nothing but stoke the fires of resentment of the PRS- many of which are unfounded and unjustified. Every single failing of the housing sector is the fault of successive governments- not of landlords or their agents. Have we seen banking reform or accountability change since the 2008 GFC? No. Are we seeing utility companies taxed, or acquired, to control living costs? No. Are we seeing gov or councils formulate sound housing strategies that meet the real needs of Londoners? No. Are we seeing an end to right to buy? No.
There are so many things Khan could do to genuinely impact viable change. Instead, he wants to bank his uninformed drum in more clickbait politics.
This is not only poor & misinformed, it is bordering on dangerous. People are under so much pressure atm- if we keep allowing politicians to stoke the fires of malcontent- we will see strikes and riots.
This political lightweight doesn’t miss an opportunity to deflect from his problems!
Rather than focusing on renting, he needs to do the job he’s paid to do [as PCC for London], and reduce the appalling serious crime figures. One of the major reasons I left London, the City of my birth, was because of Khan. I had never felt unsafe in my City for 65 years!