Ben Wealthy

New  figures , published by lender Kent Reliance, have revealed private landlords will own £1tn worth of property by next year. The figure currently stands at £930.7bn, three-and-a-half times what it was in 2001.  Through times of austerity this represents extraordinary growth and an immense hoarding of wealth by a small elite, about 2% of the population are private landlords, who do very little to actually earn their money. We are not talking about innovators, researchers, scientists or manufacturers here. Private landlords have ridden one of the few waves to be found in post-recession Britain, the property game, propped up by desperate tenants and government handouts. The boom in the private rented sector is actually being subsidised by the taxpayer -  £9bn of housing benefit payments end up in the pockets of private landlords each year Those of us who have been renters in the years since the crash have seen repairs go undone month after month and re...

So, nimbyism works. The decades long ground war to besiege town halls with petitions, traffic surveys and legal challenges has, I know this is hard to accept, been incredibly effective in halting the cause of new homes.  New research published by the Institute for Government confirms what we've all known for a long time. Essentially areas with high levels of home ownership tend to have lower levels of growth in new housing stock. Nimbys organise, mobilise and very often win – the findings suggest the nimby-effect could have prevented up to one million homes being built between 2001-2011.  The report identifies a number of policy factors which give in-built advantage to nimbyism: weak or absent regional planning coordination, limited local fiscal autonomy and development control (any change of land use is subject to planning permission). Clearly a shift in power is required.  Nimbys have fought an aggressive war over decades - fuelled by rising home ownership, a se...