The mental health problems faced by rough sleepers have reached a ‘critical level’ following a rise in the homelessness rate, St Mungo’s has found. Among its clients, 40 per cent were diagnosed with depression and 22 per cent were diagnosed with schizophrenia, which St Mungo’s called ‘the tip of the iceberg’. It warned that the
North London residents have reacted angrily over proposals to rent out council housing on the private market. Camden council, which has 17,000 people on the housing waiting list, says it wants to renovate up to 500 homes but locals warn that families could miss out on a flat if it is rented to people who
Two London regeneration projects – Albert Basin and Elephant & Castle – have been named as two of the 16 founding projects of the international climate positive development programme, launched by Bill Clinton at an environmental summit in South Korea today. The project aims to reduce net greenhouse gas emissions by having developers and local
A freedom of information request by Andrew Slaughter, London MP for Ealing, Acton and Shepherd’s Bush, has found presentations made by the Conservative leader of Hammersmith and Fulham council to senior Tory figures calling for limiting social housing to the old, infirm and disabled in a bid to solve the ‘concentration of deprivation’. Council leader
Rents have fallen even faster than house prices in central London since the collapse of Lehman Brothers, an estate agent survey has found. Rents are down, on average, 10.6 per cent since September, compared with 8.9 per cent for sales. In ‘cold-spots’ such as Kensington and Chelsea they are down by as much as 15
Across England the average discount on a local authority home has fallen from 27 per cent in 1997/98 to 11 per cent in 2007/08, junior housing minister Iain Wright said in response to parliamentary questions. The trend was most dramatic in London, where the average discount was worth 53 per cent of an average right-to-buy
The UK could be home to almost 750,000 illegal immigrants, following an estimated rise in their numbers since 2001, a Home Office study for London mayor Boris Johnson has said. Mr Johnson has called an amnesty for many of them ‘morally right’, although the government has warned that it would become a ‘pull factor’ for
Boris Johnson has pledged to help Londoners needing affordable housing and cut social housing waiting lists, in his £5 billion draft housing strategy being unveiled today. He said he would identify land belonging to the Greater London authority on which to build new houses, increase shared ownership schemes to help more people get on the
Mayor of London Boris Johnson has approved plans to redevelop one of the capital’s largest and most deprived estates. The Ferrier estate in Kidbrooke will be replaced with 4,000 new homes, of which 38 per cent will be affordable housing.
Almost 1.8 million people have moved to London from abroad in the past decade, the Bank of Scotland has found. However, nearly two million people moved away from the capital to other parts of Britain, the largest number lost to internal migration of any area in the UK. The South East of England was the