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Brent Poverty Commission urges borough to buy retail space to convert into housing
The London Borough of Brent should buy up shops and convert them into housing to tackle pressures around housing affordability and poverty in the area, a commission has said.
The Brent Poverty Commission, which considered the impact of expensive rents in relation to poverty, suggested the local authority should “acquire shops suitable for conversion into housing to regenerate high streets”.
The commission, chaired by former Local Government Association chair Lord Best, said the council should also use its company, i4B Holdings, to purchase private rented sector property, including former Right to Buy properties, to replace the requirement for expensive temporary accommodation.
The comments come just weeks after the government announced new planning rules, set to come in in September, which will ensure a “wider range of commercial buildings” can be converted into flats without planning permission, including shops which have shut down and become vacant during the pandemic.
The commission’s report said that Brent should build more affordable homes, using its borrowing power to build, working with housing associations and taking advantage of post-coronavirus opportunities to buy from developers and landlords which are exiting the market.
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In total, the report, published today, makes 40 recommendations on how to tackle the causes and consequences of poverty in Brent, in which it found that 33% of households are in poverty after accounting for housing costs and 43% of children in the borough are living in poverty.
It also found that the borough has seen an increased affordability gap as its proximity to central London drives up housing costs while pay remains low locally.
The commission said that the reliance by those on low incomes on the private rented sector often leads to housing insecurity and lower housing standards.
“The commission’s view was that there was an urgent need both to build more social housing and to improve standards within the private rented sector,” it said.
The commission, which was set up before the COVID-19 outbreak, noted the significant impact the pandemic has had on the borough and cited Inside Housing’s analysis which showed Brent having the highest death rate from COVID-19 in the country.
Lord Best, who was the chair of the Affordable Housing Commission, said that the borough had taken “a battering” during the pandemic and noted that Brent has seen the second largest amount of jobs furloughed in the city since the outbreak began.
During a press conference on the report, Lord Best also said he was “worried” about the government’s plans to scrap Section 106 and replace it with a levy and added that he “needs to be convinced” that it will not deliver less affordable homes.
He said: “Our report makes recommendations to ease poverty in Brent by raising incomes. It also shows that poverty is driven by high costs, specifically of private sector housing rents, that lead to more than two out of five children living in poverty. We call for urgent action to generate the social housing that can address this problem.”
