Green mayoral candidate Sian Berry: I'll cap rents and stop foreign business buying up new housing

Mayoral candidate: Sian Berry
Glenn Copus

Green mayoral candidate Sian Berry today vowed to cap rents, block foreign buyers from snapping up new housing and link the cost of “affordable” homes to local wages.

Transport campaigner and north London councillor Sian Berry, who came fourth in 2008, was selected last night to run in next year’s City Hall race.

Speaking to the Standard, she called on MPs to back a bill that would give local mayors the power to set rent caps in their cities - something that could make a big difference to the successful candidate's ability to tackle the housing crisis.

“People keep putting ‘affordable’ in quotes because it’s 80 per cent of market rate and that’s not affordable to anyone on a normal wage,” she said.

“We have lots of brownfield sites being developed and we don’t want to lose them to big luxury flats being sold abroad.

“Housing is being bought up by companies abroad. They’re very hard to tax and they’re not really helping London.”

She also called for the mayor to have powers to “redefine ‘affordable’ in terms of local wages, not market prices”.

Housing call: Ms Berry said more should be done to stop foreign business buying up new housing developments in London (Picture: Glenn Copus)
Glenn Copus

Ms Berry last night criticised Boris Johnson for not doing enough to help Londoners or taking the role seriously enough.

“Although Boris Johnson has made it look a bit of a laugh there’s such an important job to be done running London,” she said.

“The Greens have more passion and care for the people of London in their little fingers than Boris Johnson has in his whole body.”

She described the surge in support for left-wing Labour leadership candidate Jeremy Corbyn as “exciting” as it meant Londoners were ready to consider radical ideas.

“People are much more willing to get involved in causes and talk about more radical policies. It opens up political space for us. We have tripled our membership in the last year,” she said.

Ms Berry has proposed taking empty homes into public control to help tackle London’s housing shortfall.

She wants councils to use compulsory purchase orders to bring more properties back into use.

The controversial move would anger some landlords but she argued it could be an important way of providing more housing.

It came as she set out plans for a new Community Homes Unit at City Hall that would help residents fight off developers and regenerate their own estates. As a first step she pledged to block the unpopular Earl’s Court regeneration scheme.

The unit would provide expertise and grants to help residents navigate the town hall planning process and clear legal hurdles to get greater control of their own homes and develop their own master-plans.

Ms Berry, who lives in Camden, also said if elected her party would block road-building in the capital, instead focusing on improving public transport and cycling facilities. She told the Standard last month she opposed plans for new Thames road crossings in east London.

Instead, she said today, she wants north and south London linked by bike, pedestrian and tram bridges.

Her plan is to cut traffic by “giving people less need to drive” and investing more heavily in public transport. She claimed Mr Johnson had failed to improve bus services, comparing his tenure with that of Ken Livingstone, who drastically increased the night bus network.

Ms Berry, 40, insisted the Greens were not anti-business, but said she wanted the capital freed from reliance on “a few banks who hold us to ransom every time we ask them to pay taxes”.

“We want to build a more resilient economy, one that doesn’t rely entirely on financial services," she said, pointing out she won the backing of the Federation of Small Business in 2008 - "without compromising on the Congestion Charge".

Jenny Jones came third for the Greens in 2012. Ms Berry, who ran against Mr Livingstone and Mr Johnson in 2008, said she had not wanted to run three years ago because “they were re-running the same election” – but feels this time that “there’s a vacancy”.

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