Notes on London housing crisis
Inflated prices and a dire shortage of new housing in London
By
Allison Smith
16 March 2017
Southeast London council guilty of house fire deaths
Last month, London’s Southwark Council was found guilty of egregious safety breaches that led to the deaths by fire of six Lankanal House Council Estate residents. The court assessed a paltry sum of £300,000 for the violations.
The charges resulting from the 2009 inferno include a failure to carry out a suitable and sufficient risk assessment, failure to take general fire precautions—including in relation to safety of employees—and a failure to ensure that premises were subject to a suitable system of maintenance.
The deaths may have been prevented had appropriate fire safety measures been taken in a recent upgrade of the estate. Additionally, there is evidence that the property may not have had regular visits by London Fire Brigade (LFB), which meant that when LFB arrived on the scene of the blaze they had little knowledge of the property layout, including emergency exits and potential fire hazards. The residents that died were left trapped in their units.
A Freedom of Information request found there are 114 London tower blocks rated high risk by local councils, yet only four of these received the four annual familiarisation visits recommended by the LFB’s own guidelines. The information showed that 21 of the highest risk buildings received zero visits.
In recent years, London Fire Brigade has been gutted with relentless cuts, including the 2014 closure of 10 fire stations across London, which resulted in the loss of 552 firefighters and 14 fire engines.
London house prices second most overvalued in the world
According to UBS Wealth Management’s housing “bubble” Index—a…