London Property 40 yrs on

It's over 40 years since 'The Recurrent Crisis of London' was published in 1973. So what has changed? Not a lot. Property speculation in London is rife, land ownership in London has changed little since 1973. £billions are being made on property developments like 1 Hyde Park Mansions, and property tycoons like Joe Levy and Harry Hyams have been replaced by the Candy Brothers.

Once again a huge amount of money, most of it from overseas, is chasing a diminishing amount of real estate in central London. An apartment or flat in London is beyond the reach of most young people. 'Content to rent' is the new mantra for those living in outlying areas, and with no rent controls speculators are moving in there too. London Councils have stopped building and existing housing estates are being labelled 'economically obsolete' and changes to Housing Benefit mean many of the less well off occupants are being pressured to move on.

'Affordable housing', once the bright idea of ex Mayor Ken Livingstone, that stipulated that every development must have a proportion of 'affordable' accomodation, has been replaced by new priorities that favour the developers. 'No social housing' headlines in adverts to overseas buyers for residential accomodation being built in London.

No change there then. A speculative bubble of huge proportions is emerging in London  AGAIN.