Southwark Green ElEanor MargoliEs

www.eleanormargolies.co.uk @ellanOrnell

Land ownership must be more transparent

The current model for building social housing in Southwark is broken but the land commission is a good start to fixing it.

As it stands, local authorities don’t generally have the capital to build large-scale social housing projects on their own. So, they must rely on investment from private developers to fund these projects - think the Aylesbury Estate redevelopment and Elephant Park.

Unfortunately, it’s not in private developers’ interests to build cheap, affordable flats for families. If the housing market was to be flooded with reasonably priced flats, it would bring down house prices generally - not what private developers want.

So we’re left with a situation where local authorities must pander to multi-billion development companies, potentially with opaque off-shore accounting structures. They are reduced to begging them to include a measly 35 per cent affordable housing in their housing projects. And even then, developers do everything they can to nibble away at that, looking to squeeze out more profit.

But the land commission could cut out private developers. By encouraging the council to team up with private landowners with social interest, like faith institutions, it extracts the financial imperatives of the private developer.

Admittedly, private landowners like churches, and small to medium size businesses, won’t have capital even comparable to large developers. So don’t expect your local flat-roofed evangelical church to fund a 25-storey social housing block. But involving them in community building projects is still a good idea and creative solutions to the housing crisis could come of it.

The commission does have some pitfalls. For all Labour councillors’ protestations, making prospective Labour MP Miatta Fahnbulleh the chair does seem questionable. If the commission turns out to be a huge success, is it right that a future Labour candidate will get the credit, having been appointed by a Labour-run council? Almost certainly not.

The exclusion of any environmental group from the board is also bizarre. Especially as Cllr James McAsh, who came up with the land commission, said tackling the climate crisis was a big reason for the commission. We might, however, see a late addition to the board with climate credentials.

It’s a shame that the commission won’t do a full survey of land ownership in the borough. You feel that we can only seriously talk about revolutionising land-use in Southwark once we know who owns what. At a national level, the government must do more to ensure land ownership is transparent in this country. It’s an obvious first step to tackling the housing crisis.

Cryptic Puzzle

clues across

4 A religious man can be firm (6)

8 The 15 by which a judge might hold two thousand dollars? (7)

9 Food for the parasite (6)

10 Lock in the ones who are performers (9)

11 A standard flower (4)

13 Sudden thrust that with a quiet start could be a dive (5)

14 To experience again the end of the ache inside will bring comfort (7)

16 Rub around the climate (7)

18 Deserve a different mitre (5)

19 The editor, for example, goes back to the margin (4)

21 Steady! Rye cocktails can bring back the recent past (9)

22 Sounds like the larger type of mill (6)

23 Exult about a Ulyssean author, by the sound of it (7)

24 Discourages those who rested out (6)

SolutionS to laSt week’S croSSword

cryptic clues down

1 Broke the great emperor, in short, about to do the old city (9)

2 Amount to an opening round Mr Peck (9)

3 Control the French wood (5)

5 Hints on putting up a barbecue? (4)

6 The clumsy performance of Napoleon initially in a call to war (6)

7 Mere upset before the example arises to come into view (6)

9 Break off relations with the visionary, and start a veto inside (5)

11 Dismiss the evidence as being incombustible (9)

12 Having overturned the cells, I do a jig to celebrate the escape? (9)

15 Bar the last head always (5)

16 Firmly fixed as occidentally bordered (6)

17 Horrified at what the flag has to show (6)

20 Unqualified to speak? (5)

21 Time the sun’s beam comes up round the East (4) across: 1 Hyphened 4 Gala 8 Relief 10 Spills 11 Voice 12 Offer 14 Angels 17 Fingertip 18

Particles 22 Ballet 23 Rosin 24 Below 26 Garden 27 Weaker 28 Sold 29 Fattened

Down. 1. Hurt 2 Pilaff 3 Eleven 5 Asleep 6 Assisted 7 Spent 9 Forgotten 10 Scarecrow

13 Final 15 Gives 16 Cabbages 18 Plural 19 Rebel 20 Lowest 21 Silken 25 Trod

Quick PUZZLE

Across: 1 Resuming 4 Stud 8 Abound 10 Scruff 11 Teeth 12 Dealt 14 Arable 17 Sleepless 18

Overladen 22 Severe 23 Runic 24 Units 26 Script 27 Sticky 28 Spot 29 Entrusts

Down: 1. Read 2 Shores 3 Mantle 5 Thumbs 6 Differed 7 Ochre 9 Deterrent 10 Stalwarts

13 Alive 15 Aspen 16 Consists 18 Overdo 19 Erupt 20 Duster 21 Nieces 25 Dyes ----

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