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The site is an absolute pit too. Grotty as hell around the old Upton park stadium. The nearest tube is on the slow District line and not even that close to central London. No way will the premium they've paid for a new build there last 5 years.

Not sitting but standing. It was packed inside. No toilets on those suburban trains. Power was already off and had been for some time on track and trains stuck in darkness. 4+ hours of that and no surprise when the station was yards away.

No mention that central government cut £700 million in funding to TfL? That's the main reason. The answer isn't to cut money for London but raise transport funding and devolution for the rest of England. England is very odd in not spending much on infrastructure. In many developed countries most cities are adequately funded. Its not Berlin or Frankfurt for gov scraps. Paris or Marseille. Beijing or Shanghai. Here the gov love playing regions off against each other. Now London is the only major world city with no gov assistance on transport operating costs. Wouldn't be so bad of there was adequate devolution to raise money locally but there isn't. The congestion charge does not do it. The rest of England has crap buses as deregulated in 1986. Local Authorities were banned from running profitable routes but had to provide subsidies for non profitable routes with no ability to cross subsidise. Even in the States cities don't function that way let alone the rest of Europe or Asia.

Greenwich Council must be one of the iffiest around. How many schemes they draw up to push up prices is amazing. It's apparently a "Labour" council in London with a dire shortage of truly affordable homes. Yet they are going to pay mortgage deposits using taxpayers money. http://www.fromthemurkydepths.co.uk/2018/01/30/greenwich-council-now-using-taxpayer-money-to-pay-mortgage-deposits/ It wasn't enough deciding to spend at least £65 million on buying homes off the market instead of using money to build outright. http://www.fromthemurkydepths.co.uk/2018/01/18/greenwich-council-spending-65-million-buying-more-private-homes/

Do you mean moving to towns in the middle of nowhere or other big cities? I've not met one person yet in their 20s and 30s who left London and went to other great UK cities and didn't ask why they didn't do it sooner. The music scene for example in so many cities is thriving and dying in London due to high costs and it taking forever to get to gigs in the reducing number of venues. Same with a whole bunch of cultural activites.

Nah. Manchester, Newcastle, Bristol, Glasgow, Brighton and many more cities offer loads. But their economies are often sucked dry by centralisation (less so Glasgow). In London a person ends up living in zone 6 and it takes them 2 hours to get home from a gig. It's a 10 minute walk in other cities. Loads of people buy the myth and go to London then leave. Particularly those from dull towns. Those youngsters in other UK cities see it as the overhyped place it is.

30% right to buy income. The other 70% borrowing or using reserves.

The figures in the article show average homes purchase is £395k! Many more than that can be built on their own land at £223k a unit. Not directly as govt bans it but using their own not-for-profit off-shoot which avoids caps and can borrow from banks as any developer does. They aren't doing this.

A month or two ago I put up on here how Greenwich Council in London were to spend £46 million buying homes from the market. Now it looks like another £65 million. http://www.fromthemurkydepths.co.uk/2018/01/18/greenwich-council-spending-65-million-buying-more-private-homes/ It's the least cost effective way to spend Right to Buy income by a mile according to figures. Helps homeowners though. This is a Labour council. Not Corbynite though. More a mix of right wing Labour and clapped out councillors in seats for decades. Who knows how many are landlords or multiple homeowners. If this is replicated at other councils the sums must be huge. Surely this needs a lot of exposure?

Read it and weep. £46.5m spent on buying homes at average of of £387k. Ever increasing prices costing taxpayers. Surely potential here for some dodgy local practices? http://www.fromthemurkydepths.co.uk/2017/11/27/greenwich-council-spend-46-5-million-buying-homes-off-the-open-market/

I know the area. it doesn't surprise me with that Labour council. A fair few are buy to let landlords I believe. Much of the area is a shithole (much of Woolwich is a complete shocker especially the backstreets). Painful to think how much they are blowing buying houses around there to prop up prices

Barwell blocked local authorities regulating all buy to lets in their authorities. He made it harder to do so a couple of years back. Not sure how he can be pro renter and anti-lordlord with that record. He has also come nowhere near housing build levels needed as he blocked local authorities building.

Unfortunately as long as the UK gives out housing benefit and tax credits without prior contributions it wont stop the less needed migrants. We'll lose the skilled people like you mention but not stop those (both EU and non-EU) with very high birthrates (thus welfare claims) in "self-employment" or part time low paid jobs. The worst for that is generally non EU anyway.

The UCL study quoted by the FT, BBC etc is deeply flawed. Well worth a read actually to see the holes. It estimates self-employed people earn the same as employed thus they receive less in welfare and more tax paid. But this isn't the case. Wages for self-employed have declined substantially, and welfare such as tax credits costs have risen. A higher percentage of migrants are self employed than Britons.

Well privatising the railways has led to 3-4 times the subsidy it ever had when state owned. Except now every role is duplicated 3 times and getting anything done (eg moving trains from one region to another for a big event) involves a mountain of lawyers and legal changes.