Personnel Today
  • Home
    • All PT content
    • Advertise
  • Email sign-up
  • Topics
    • HR Practice
    • Employee relations
    • Equality, diversity and inclusion
    • Learning & training
    • Pay & benefits
    • Wellbeing
    • Recruitment & retention
    • HR strategy
    • HR Tech
    • The HR profession
    • Global
    • All HR topics
  • Legal
    • Case law
    • Commentary
    • Flexible working
    • Legal timetable
    • Maternity & paternity
    • Shared parental leave
    • Redundancy
    • TUPE
    • Disciplinary and grievances
    • Employer’s guides
  • AWARDS
    • Personnel Today Awards
    • The RAD Awards
  • Jobs
    • Find a job
    • Jobs by email
    • Careers advice
    • Post a job
  • XpertHR
    • Learn more
    • Products
    • Pricing
    • Free trial
    • Subscribe
    • XpertHR USA
  • Webinars
  • OHW+

Personnel Today

Register
Log in
Personnel Today
  • Home
    • All PT content
    • Advertise
  • Email sign-up
  • Topics
    • HR Practice
    • Employee relations
    • Equality, diversity and inclusion
    • Learning & training
    • Pay & benefits
    • Wellbeing
    • Recruitment & retention
    • HR strategy
    • HR Tech
    • The HR profession
    • Global
    • All HR topics
  • Legal
    • Case law
    • Commentary
    • Flexible working
    • Legal timetable
    • Maternity & paternity
    • Shared parental leave
    • Redundancy
    • TUPE
    • Disciplinary and grievances
    • Employer’s guides
  • AWARDS
    • Personnel Today Awards
    • The RAD Awards
  • Jobs
    • Find a job
    • Jobs by email
    • Careers advice
    • Post a job
  • XpertHR
    • Learn more
    • Products
    • Pricing
    • Free trial
    • Subscribe
    • XpertHR USA
  • Webinars
  • OHW+

Personnel Today

Key workers need low-cost housing

by Personnel Today 23 Apr 2002
by Personnel Today 23 Apr 2002

There is a lack of affordable housing in London for those on lower incomes
and it is damaging both public and private sector organisations. Only by
working together will the problem begin to be dealt with, writes Neale Coleman

The pressures of London’s world-class economy are exacerbating a serious
shortage of housing, creating a supply side threat to the capital’s competitive
position.

While most focus has been on the lack of affordable housing for households
at risk, such as the homeless and single parent families, there is an emerging
consensus that there is a key worker housing crisis.

The problem is wider than failing to meet housing priority needs – the
housing shortage is affecting London’s workforce and the public sector’s
ability to deliver essential services. It is no longer just a housing issue but
an economic one.

To address the problem, the Government is prioritising programmes for
certain public sector employees.

The Government’s Starter Home Initiative has named nurses, teachers and
police as those central to delivering the Government’s reforms on improving the
health service, education and tackling crime.

Key worker housing, however, affects employers on low to moderate incomes
across the board, not just those in the public sector.

London’s role as a world city is based on its excellence in business and
finance, education, culture and the arts. Its tourist industry directly employs
275,000 people and contributes £9m to the economy. London’s public services are
as dependent on porters and cleaners for their service delivery as they are on
teachers and nurses.

The Mayor’s Housing Commission report, Homes for a World City, saw the
problem as a lack of intermediate housing, that is housing for people who
cannot afford market housing but earn too much to qualify for social rented
housing.

Traditionally public sector employers have provided intermediate housing,
such as police section houses and cluster flats for nursing, to help house new
recruits. Increasingly employers are finding retention is as great a problem as
recruitment and that shared accommodation is not the solution to staff
retention problems. London’s employees have the same housing aspirations as the
rest of the population – to own their own home in a safe and accessible
neighbourhood.

This has housing implications for the provision of intermediate housing.
There needs to be more housing for rent for new recruits. But there also needs
to be more starter homes and family housing for sale. Shared equity housing has
the most potential, but it must be made to stack up, requiring more public
subsidy.

The Mayor’s response to the intermediate housing issue has been threefold:
provide more intermediate housing, sponsor research into housing demand and
promote new partnerships to deliver more housing.

Planning policies in the London Plan will seek to increase the supply of
housing and the proportion of affordable housing. Intermediate housing is seen
as part of the continuum of affordable housing provision.

Already research for the GLA shows encouraging signs that housing capacity
estimates are being met and exceeded.

The London development pipeline is also very buoyant. Recent research for
the GLA and the House Builders’ Federation has found that affordable housing
policies have not been a brake on housing development.

The GLA is sponsoring research into intermediate housing needs and
aspirations, and the mismatch between need and supply. The Mayor has supported
the Single Regeneration Budget project, Keep London Working, which is providing
research into promoting new intermediate housing projects.

The Mayor’s London Development Agency has also funded the development of a
prototype key-worker ‘mini-suite’ – a housing module designed to provide
accommodation for key workers to rent for as little as £65 per week, affordable
to people on a salary of £14,000 per year.

Finally, the Mayor is using his strategic role to promote pan-London and
sub-regional partnerships, such as the Housing Forum for London and the Thames
Gateway partnership.

It is increasingly clear that more can be achieved through working in
partnership – this problem is too great to be dealt with in isolation.

By Neale Coleman, housing adviser to the Mayor of London

Personnel Today
Personnel Today

Personnel Today articles are written by an expert team of award-winning journalists who have been covering HR and L&D for many years. Some of our content is attributed to "Personnel Today" for a number of reasons, including: when numerous authors are associated with writing or editing a piece; or when the author is unknown (particularly for older articles).

previous post
London house price blow to key workers
next post
NI increase opens door to pay claims

You may also like

Barrister wins gender critical belief discrimination claim

27 Jul 2022

‘Patchy’ mental health services failing ethnic minority communities

11 Jul 2022

Global study highlights hypertension treatment failings

8 Jul 2022

NICE sets out new guideline on managing depression

8 Jul 2022

Half of employees struggle to switch off on...

8 Jul 2022

Five steps for organisations across the globe to...

8 Jun 2022

The Search for Talent: Six Major Employer Pitfalls

24 May 2022

Grants scheme set up to support women’s health...

16 May 2022

How music can help to ease anxiety at...

9 May 2022

OH will be key to navigating ‘second pandemic’...

14 Apr 2022
  • 6 reasons why work-based learning is better than traditional training PROMOTED | A recent Fortune/Deloitte survey found that 71% of CEOs are anticipating that this year’s biggest business disrupter...Read more
  • Strengthening Scotland’s public services through virtual recruiting PROMOTED | This website is Scotland's go-to place for job seekers looking to apply for roles in public services...Read more
  • What’s next for L&D? Enter Alchemist… PROMOTED | It’s time to turn off the tedious and get ready for interactive and immersive learning experiences...Read more
  • Simple mistakes are blighting the onboarding experience PROMOTED | The onboarding of new hires is a company’s best chance...Read more
  • Preventing Burnout: How can HR help key workers get the right help? PROMOTED | Workplace wellbeing may seem a distant memory...Read more

Personnel Today Jobs
 

Search Jobs

PERSONNEL TODAY

About us
Contact us
Browse all HR topics
Email newsletters
Content feeds
Cookies policy
Privacy policy
Terms and conditions

JOBS

Personnel Today Jobs
Post a job
Why advertise with us?

EVENTS & PRODUCTS

The Personnel Today Awards
The RAD Awards
Employee Benefits
Forum for Expatriate Management
OHW+
Whatmedia

ADVERTISING & PR

Advertising opportunities
Features list 2022

  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • Instagram
  • Linkedin


© 2011 - 2022 DVV Media International Ltd

Personnel Today
  • Home
    • All PT content
    • Advertise
  • Email sign-up
  • Topics
    • HR Practice
    • Employee relations
    • Equality, diversity and inclusion
    • Learning & training
    • Pay & benefits
    • Wellbeing
    • Recruitment & retention
    • HR strategy
    • HR Tech
    • The HR profession
    • Global
    • All HR topics
  • Legal
    • Case law
    • Commentary
    • Flexible working
    • Legal timetable
    • Maternity & paternity
    • Shared parental leave
    • Redundancy
    • TUPE
    • Disciplinary and grievances
    • Employer’s guides
  • AWARDS
    • Personnel Today Awards
    • The RAD Awards
  • Jobs
    • Find a job
    • Jobs by email
    • Careers advice
    • Post a job
  • XpertHR
    • Learn more
    • Products
    • Pricing
    • Free trial
    • Subscribe
    • XpertHR USA
  • Webinars
  • OHW+