Lib Dem Mayoral candidate: London needs more homes to bring down cost of rent

2 May 2021, 14:15 | Updated: 2 May 2021, 14:24

Luisa Porritt proposes city hall takes over unused land for housing

Liberal Democrat Candidate for Mayor of London Luisa Porritt today told LBC she aims to make renting more affordable in the capital by increasing housing supply.

Speaking to Tom Swarbrick on Swarbrick on Sunday on LBC she said: "What we need is more homes. Not these 'papering over the cracks' fixes. We need to fundamentally fix our housing crisis and the only way to do that is to increase the number of homes that are available and that will bring down rents for everybody.

"We don't need artificial rent controls, we need more homes."

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"We know that we have empty office space coming on to the market, I'm the only candidate talking about using that to convert some of these spaces into quality affordable housing.

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"There's also public land owned by TfL and the NHS. There's over 25,000 empty homes in the capital. So there is land that we can buy up, that we can use more creatively in order to deliver those homes."

Ms Porritt also said she believes that 'unhelpful' blanket stop-and-search powers need to be reviewed and called for policing to be 'intelligence led.'

She told LBC: "Suspicion-less stop and search powers are unhelpful. These are blanket powers that are often put in place after an incident." She said she wants police to focus on intelligence-led use of stop-and-search powers instead.

London goes to the polls on May 6 to elect a new mayor and decide who sits on the London Assembly. Polls will open at 7am and close at 10pm. A result is not likely until Saturday 8 May.