Licensing changes won't kill Hackney, but will protect our residents (first appeared in The Guardian)

Nightlife is at the heart of our borough’s vibrancy, but we must stop revellers vomiting and urinating on our residential streets

Licensing policy isn’t usually the most contentious area of local government. It’s certainly not something I ever thought would lead to me being called an “unutterable cunt” by Giles Coren. But that’s what happened after Hackney council, where I am the elected mayor, approved its new licensing policy on 18 July. Since then, some have described the new rules as the toughest restrictions on nightlife in the country. But we don’t agree.

Over the past two years, Hackney council has gathered extensive research, from our street cleaning time to the emergency services, on the impact of the night-time economy. As a result, we’ve introduced a new policy that aims to support new, well-managed businesses.

Our new policy sets the basic guidelines for new venues. It will be the responsbility of businesses to state, in their application, how they will manage the impact of their late-night business on the local area. We want to work collaboratively with new businesses to achieve that.

It also doesn’t affect existing businesses at all. On Tuesday, for instance, under the new policy, our licensing committee granted permission for a restaurant to extend the hours it serves alcohol in Dalston.

We have decided to set the core opening hours across Hackney, including Dalston and Shoreditch, for which a new business can expect to get a licence because, after careful reflection, we need to balance the need for pubs and clubs to thrive with the needs of people living in the local neighbourhood.

This row has quickly moved away from the technical aspects of licensing to become one about class and what kind of place Hackney is.

We have come under fierce attack, especially on Twitter, in particular by the We Love Hackney campaign, which has, unfortunately, spread some ideas that are simply not true about the impact of the policy. Residents and local business owners have, quite rightly, been alarmed.

If I didn’t know better, I would have supported it myself. I love Hackney’s nightlife – it’s one of the reasons I moved here in 2003, spending my formative years in Shoreditch and Dalston. Before that, I worked in bars at college and university. Nightlife is at the heart of the borough’s creativity, inclusivity and vibrancy. I understand why people have risen to defend it and I know we’ve got to work to reassure those with genuine concerns.

But campaigners suggest it’s a blanket policy against all new venues, or a curfew. It’s not. They suggest that everything in Hackney will shut at 11pm. It won’t.

We’re trying to strike a balance between a growing night-time economy, the interests of the residents who live nearby and the impact on our increasingly stretched public services. Since we implemented similar measures from 2005 in Shoreditch and 2014 in Dalston, we have not hindered the growth of the night-time economy, but sought to shape it in a sensitive way to the benefit of all. There are now more than 1,300 licensed premises in the borough.

Nightlife is very important to Hackney, financially and culturally, but it has a huge cost on the public purse. The Metropolitan police, already stretched to its limits, is stretched even further on a Friday and Saturday night in Dalston and Shoreditch, when crime and antisocial behaviour rise sharply.

Nightlife costs us about £1.5m a year more than it brings in, mostly for extra street cleaning. Whether we should be spending that money cleaning up partygoers’ litter, vomit and worse using austerity-stretched services is a matter for serious debate. Rents and business rates have gone up, but this money doesn’t come to the council to spend on services.

The argument we’ve faced is that if people don’t like noise they shouldn’t live in the city. Tell that to the thousands of council tenants who live in Shoreditch, many of whom were there long before it became the Shoreditch we know today. Tell that to the working people bringing up their families in Dalston, without whom London could not function, who are woken at 4am by revellers vomiting in their front gardens or urinating on their steps.

For some, nightlife has positive benefits; for others, it means antisocial behaviour, noise and people from elsewhere using Hackney as a weekend playground with no thought for those who live here.

This borough is just 6.8 square miles with a population of nearly 300,000. Many of our residents enjoy our rich cultural and social life, and many of them just want a good night’s sleep.

We have fantastic, responsible bar and club owners with whom we work closely, and others – thankfully a minority – who are less so.

Hackney council, with a diverse population and ever-decreasing public resources, is trying to achieve a balanced approach. As mayor of this exciting borough, I’ll always be a friend to responsibly run venues but I will also defend our residents’ right to a clean and peaceful life.

(This article first appeared in the Guardian, it can still be found there: https://www.theguardian.com/society/2018/jul/27/icensing-changes-wont-kill-hackney-but-will-protect-residents)

The Mossbourne model (first published by Progress during their campaign against the expansion of grammer schools in 2016)

It is the top 20 per cent of kids that make Hackney’s schools truly comprehensive – and successful

Over the summer, Hackney Labour party started our own campaign against grammar schools and other Tory attacks on schools, which we continued into the ‘Education, Not Segregation’ campaign. The response from local parents, unions and residents could not have been clearer: the Tory plans were deeply unwelcome and that we should fight any attempt to impose them on Hackney.

This unity of purpose around defending our successes would not have been credible or possible only a generation ago when Hackney’s schools were among the worst in the country. Hackney’s record of improvement is Labour’s record of improvement, and we should be unapologetically proud of what we achieved between 1997 and 2010 at Westminster, and between 2001 and now in the London borough of Hackney.

In the late nineties, only nine per cent of children in Hackney schools were getting five good GCSEs. Now we are well above the national average, with some schools achieving as much as 90 per cent. Was that journey simple? No. There were debates to be had about local influence, the role and shape of academies and the setting up of an independent not for profit company – the Learning Trust – to run our schools along the way. However, the council, led by my predecessor Jules Pipe, ensured local political leadership remained at the heart of education in Hackney.

This led to record investment, with all secondary schools rebuilt, real investment in teaching and a relentless focus on standards and outcomes, as well as the council building 19 brand new children centres and five new youth centres.

When challenging the Tories on education, Labour must ground our campaigning in what works – looking to and championing our experience in local and national government to take them on, not only with our values, but also our record. As Michael Wilshaw, chief inspector of Ofsted and a former headteacher of Mossbourne Academy in Hackney, has said, reintroducing selection at 11 years old would be a ‘profoundly retrograde step’. Wilshaw has made it clear that he could never have achieved what he did at Mossbourne without, as he puts it, that top 20 per cent, who instead of being creamed off into grammar schools, inspire and lift the rest of the school, in a comprehensive setting.

I am proud of what has been achieved over the past 15 years, with Hackney’s schools changing beyond recognition, transforming the opportunities and life chances for children in the borough. Recent results at GCSE and Key Stage One are now amongst the best in the country, and importantly that success extends to our children in care, our special educational needs cohort, and those on free school meals.

However, rather than taking the lessons and experience of Hackney and exporting it to parts of the country that need support to improve, the Tories are set on turning the clock back. At a time when there are chronic skills gaps in the British economy and we need to invest more in skills, both vocational and technical, the reintroduction of grammar schools will do nothing to close those gaps and, if anything, will only widen them.

Instead of meeting these challenges they launch an attack on inclusive schools and continue to cut funding to early years and further education; while in the autumn statement finding £50m for new grammar schools. We face possible changes to the schools funding formula that could see London schools lose up to £1,000 per pupil. Which is why I, with other leaders, have written to the chancellor warning about the impacts of such a cut.

Locally, we know there is still more to do. We need to reduce exclusions, ensure apprenticeships are equally valued, improve careers advice and build more school places. We have the ambition to do all this, but it will all be put at risk if the Tories continue their attack on our schools.

As 2016 draws to a close, we have launched our own conversation with residents about the future of our education. It will ask them what type of schools they want to see, whether they support selection and what role they think the council should have in education.

The council carried out a similar consultation in 2003, and residents responded that they wanted non-selective, non-denominational, mixed-sex comprehensives. This feedback helped to shape the sort of the schools we opened. We think that it is only right that given the challenges we face we have that conversation again.

Labour must have a clear vision that seeks to raise standards for all, not just for the few, opposing the Tories and a policy which will undermine years of hard work by our councils and schools, and let down a generation of children.


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Philip Glanville is mayor of Hackney. He tweets at @PhilipGlanville

Join the Progress rally against grammar schools. 7-8.30pm, 12 December 2016, Committee room 15, House of Commons, SW1A 0AA. Speakers include: Angela Rayner MP, Lucy Powell MP, Peter Kyle MP, Wes Streeting MP, Catherine McKinnell MP, Estelle Morris, Richard Angell, Philip Glanville, Robbie Young, Liz Rees, Rory Palmer, Mark Rusling

This right-to-buy deal will wreck our plans for truly affordable homes

At Hackney council, we want housing associations to guarantee homes lost under right to buy will be replaced at social rent

This blog post first appeared in the Guardian Housing Network on 5th October 2015.

The past week has seen some of the most significant arguments in years about the future of social housing.

It started when the National Housing Federation and housing minister Greg Clark announced the proposal of a voluntary deal on extending right to buy to housing association properties. It continued through the Labour party conference where myself, many other Labour housing leads, London assembly member Tom Copley and shadow housing minister John Healey challenged housing associations to reject the deal. But following the vote on Friday 2 October, the vast majority of housing associations have signed up.

Last Tuesday, I wrote to housing association boards because, like many others including Red Kite, I believed a week was too short a time to scrutinise a deal that will bypass parliament and alter the supply of social housing.

The NHF says it does not endorse the forced sale of council homes to pay for it, but given there’s no sign that the government has any funding solution this is what it will do – undermine provision of social housing and do little to ensure future supply, whatever lip service is paid to the idea of one-for-one replacement.

The counter-argument is that it safeguards social housing held in trust, preserves the independence of housing associations and will allow them to continue delivering new homes. London housing associations have promised, according to Inside Housing, to build 93,000 new homes – but how many will directly replace what we have lost?

The key question I put to the government, the mayor of London and housing associations is where and when this new housing will be built, and under what tenure? I ask not just because I’m a Labour councillor who passionately believes in social housing, but also on behalf of the 2,100 families in Hackney in temporary accommodation.

Those families’ lives are on hold as they wait for a stable home in accommodation provided at a high cost to local and national taxpayers, as well as themselves. Our duty and commitment to those families has not changed, but decisions made in boardrooms and Whitehall have undermined their chances of living in a truly affordable home. While hoping I’m wrong, I fear they will not end up in one of these promised 93,000 homes.

If things proceed, council homes will be sold, right to buy (and, by association, buy to let) will expand and nowhere is there a guarantee that homes lost at social rent will be replaced at social rent.

I support the aspiration of home ownership, but not at the expense of the poorest and most vulnerable. Hackney is building nearly 900 new council homes for social renting, 500 homes for shared ownership and 1,200 for private sale. Long ago we resolved to stop being dependent on grants and instead self-finance. But just as we start to deliver, the rules are being changed, with the 1% rent cut to social housing and the move to force councils to sell off properties to fund the expansion of right to buy.

Even if this deal is agreed, I hope housing associations will oppose the housing bill and forced sales. I hope they continue to have a social purpose and help us replace all the social homes lost with new homes at social rent.

I support social housing because it is the only hope we have of stopping the hollowing out of communities. It’s why I am supporting the Our Homes, Our London campaign and why I am working with colleagues to oppose this bill.


Council and social housing is not dead. Before May we had started to see a renaissance of ambition and delivery across London. The days and months ahead will determine whether this continues.

Providing support to Building Lives apprentices

In this blog, first published on the Hackney Council website on 27th March 2015, I give my thoughts on the measures that Hackney Council is taking to support the borough’s apprentices who have been affected by the recent withdrawal of funding from the Building Lives programme.

Cllr Philip Glanville, Cabinet Member for Housing, said: Both living and working in Hackney I notice one recurring theme: Construction. We are a growing borough, with development changing Hackney’s landscape to meet the demand for new homes, commercial space and the growing popularity of the borough’s leisure and hospitality economy.

Construction means opportunities, from on-site training for those wishing to build construction careers, to full or part-time employment for skilled tradespeople. Helping to provide people in Hackney with access to skills and training to take advantage of present and future opportunities is hugely important. Which is why I was shocked to hear that funding for the borough’s Building Lives programme had been cancelled.

Building Lives provides a range of construction-related training for apprentices in Hackney to build skills and experience across trade disciplines to support future construction careers, or to expand on existing skills to move into other areas of the industry. With the sudden loss of funding, the careers of the apprentices that use this important training service are being put at risk. We, as a Council, will try and mitigate this impact using as many avenues as we can.

I have worked with colleagues from across the Council and Hackney Homes who, alongside staff from Building Lives, are exploring ways of supporting apprentices by finding alternative placements and additional training.

We have already taken a number of steps to support those affected:

• We are looking to identify and secure painting and decorating work in partnership with local developers and contractors in addition to Here East for further training opportunities
• Our regeneration team has been working closely with Building Lives to secure apprenticeship placement at a number of development sites, this work will continue
• Since 2014, Hackney has introduced Building Lives to a number of our Council-led housing regeneration developments to secure apprenticeship placements. We will continue to look at opportunities across these sites
• As a Council, we have contacted two apprenticeship training agencies to explore the possibility of transferring Building Lives apprenticeships over to them to ensure that their formal apprenticeship programme can be completed and qualifications can be gained. One of the agencies has welcomed this idea and is willing to work with the Council to look at this further.
• Above are a few options that we are continuing to look at closely. The Council will, in partnership with Hackney Homes, Building Lives, developers and other training agencies, continue to explore as many options available to us to ensure that the scheme completes its course and apprentices are supported.

Hackney City Villages

This chapter (4.1) first appeared in the IPPR report: 'City villages: More homes, better communities' edited by Andrew Adonis and Bill Davies which was published on 24 March 2015.

It was co-authored by Jules Pipe, Mayor of Hackney

Local authorities are going to be essential to bringing forward the city village model. As often both the largest landholders and landlords in the capital's boroughs, their role is pivotal in ensuring that developments are socially and economically viable.

The current climate for urban regeneration is challenging. While house prices in London have recovered since the crash in credit markets and risen substantially beyond pre-crisis peaks (GLA 2014), significant reductions in capital budgets, coupled with a stronger emphasis on using rents to finance development, has meant that local authorities have had to think more creatively about getting estate redevelopment off the ground.

The council as developer

In Hackney, the council is a major landowner and is regenerating 87 hectares of housing estates and brownfield sites across the borough, equivalent to more than half the size of Hyde Park in central London.

Housing quality and space are acute challenges to tackle locally. In particular, there is a high number of bedsit properties, which are increasingly inappropriate for the profile of tenant who needs social homes. Social housing in future developments will inevitably have to be different – more spacious and of better quality, and to be a part of a mixed blend of housing options rather than the socially segregated and crumbling mono-tenure estates.

Across the borough, Hackney is regenerating sites with new social renting, shared ownership and private sale homes, built to spacious, modern, lifetime standards and, in most cases, offering private outside space to existing tenants for the first time. Many blocks are simply too expensive to maintain and to refurbish, and so regeneration is the only way to ensure residents can live in homes that meet the Decent Homes standard, and with improved public realm and community facilities. These mixed tenures are not only needed to rebuild estates that are inclusive of families across the income and demographic spectrum, but are essential to finance the much-needed redevelopment. Given the squeeze on capital budgets, local authorities in London cannot build homes for social renting without cross-subsidising them by also building private sale properties. In Hackney, delivering shared ownership pays for itself, but to finance a social rent home demands the construction and sale of one and a half private homes.

Together with its partners, the borough has delivered 1,125 new homes since 2011: 622 for social rent, 155 for shared ownership/equity, and 348 for private sale. But this is not sufficient to meet the borough’s rapidly increasing population, projected to rise by 10 per cent, or an additional 25,000 households, in the coming years – in an area already struggling to meet housing demand (ONS 2014) let alone secure housing that is affordable for its resident population. Major redevelopments will play a central role in delivery supply, not least in the redeveloped estates of Woodberry Down and Colville.

Woodberry Down

When the London County Council began building Woodberry Down after the second world war, it was rightly regarded as a fine example of municipal housing and an estate of the future. It was also home to one of the country’s first comprehensive schools and the first purpose-built NHS health centre in London. The decades went by, but underinvestment by national and local government led to a situation where residents were living in homes that weren’t fit for purpose. Crucially, a structural assessment in 2002 identified that repair would be economically challenging – the homes on the site have simply become more expensive to maintain and bring up to a modern standard than to redevelop.

The first priority for Woodberry Down is to deliver modern, high-quality homes for existing residents. The second priority is to provide new community facilities including three new public parks, employment opportunities, a new children’s centre, a new academy school, an expanded primary school, as well as new shops. At Woodberry Down and on other regeneration estates we’re not only rebuilding higher-quality homes for social renting but also providing shared ownership and private sale properties, which in turn help pay for the redevelopment and meet wider housing demand.

Woodberry Down is a large-scale housing estate regeneration project, with a 20-year-plus delivery schedule worth more than £1 billion of investment. It involves demolishing 1,981 homes on the original site – now deteriorating properties – and replacing them with more than 5,550 new ones. Four out of 10 of these new homes will be for social renting and shared ownership.

Since construction began in 2009, financed in partnership with the Homes and Communities Agency and latterly the Greater London Authority (GLA), Woodberry Down has seen 441 properties demolished and 862 new homes completed, made up of 421 social rented, 135 shared ownership and 306 homes for sale. Indeed, partnership has been essential to seeing the project into its delivery stage. This includes working closely with developers, but also retaining the support of the current residents – represented by the Woodberry Down Community Organisation (WDCO).

WDCO has worked closely with the council as a critical friend, broadly supportive of the regeneration while ensuring the voice and aspirations of the community are heard. The listing of a local primary school and health centre, coupled with changing economic circumstances, necessitated a rephasing of the programme. As a result, the estate’s 2007/08 masterplan was recently updated in consultation with residents during an 18-month period, including commitments to increase the amount of public space by almost a third and to deliver 17 per cent more homes.

Regenerating the Colville estate

The Colville estate is another example of a major, local authority-led development scheme, a proposal which will double the density of existing homes on the site. The masterplan for the estate will see the replacement of 432 residential properties, 337 of which are council social rent, and 95 of which are leaseholder-owned. The proposed redevelopment will provide 925 homes, and this will directly replace the 337 social rented ones, as well as 111 units for additional intermediate housing, including shared equity and shared ownership. The remaining 476 homes on the site will be used as private market housing to cross-subsidise the social homes. Indeed, the entire scheme is largely paid for by two towers of up to 16 and 20 storeys of homes for private sale, overlooking Shoreditch Park.

Critically, the scheme has the support of the current residents: a petition featuring the names of 291 Colville residents in support of the estate’s regeneration masterplan was handed in to the borough’s planning committee, recommending approval (Hackney 2014). Facilities such as a new community centre, a new public square, space for shops and businesses, a new community garden, and the potential for local apprenticeships onsite for young people from the estate are all part of our vision for the regeneration of Colville.

As with all such schemes in Hackney we have a resident steering group, the Colville Estate Tenants and Residents Association. Every element of the 10-year-plus scheme is discussed with the elected representatives of the steering group; while the design of the new homes and the broader project are consulted on with the local community through events, drop-in surgeries and surveys. This process is not always easy, with issues such as the delivery timetable, local lettings, density and viability at the fore, but it is vital if these new city villages are to be successful for existing and new residents.

Fundamental to Hackney’s approach, as recommended by the London Assembly review of estate regeneration (London Assembly 2015) is that tenants have the ‘right to return’, with leaseholders offered a package of shared equity, rent free and shared ownership options to help them stay on their estate.

The council pays market rates for leaseholders’ properties, as assessed by an accredited surveyor and based on similar sales in the area. We also offer an equity swap for a newly built home for those that live on the estate and want to remain in the local area.

As residents are gradually decanted or temporarily moved out of the development, those vacant flats that are of sufficient quality are now being used to support local authority temporary accommodation for homeless households, until the demolition work begins.

The future for city villages

Both the Woodberry Down and Colville estates are examples of a local authority leading on estate regeneration and, in the latter case, delivering and funding estate regeneration through its own resources. Hackney now has a five-year record of development, investing in a strong in-house team, which for the first time in a generation is directly building new homes. No single model works in every location or local authority. Yet the two examples cited here are both new city villages, with the local authority taking the lead on delivering new homes, maintaining and renewing affordable and social housing in the heart of Hackney, and improving facilities for communities, now and into the future. If we as a country are to fully respond to the housing crisis in London and beyond, local authorities, like Hackney, will need to have the freedom to innovate and directly deliver these homes.

References

• Greater London Authority [GLA] (2014) ‘Housing Market Report’. http://data.london.gov.uk/housingmarket/
• Hackney (2014) ‘Planning Sub-committee: Colville Estate’. http://mginternet.hackney.gov.uk/documents/s38136/Report.pdfHackney
• London Assembly (2015) Knock it down or do it up? The Challenge of Estate Regeneration, Greater London Authority. https://www.london.gov.uk/sites/default/files/KnockItDownOrDoItUp_0.pdf
• Office for National Statistics [ONS] (2014) ‘Subnational population projections: 2012-based projections’. http://www.ons.gov.uk/ons/publications/re-reference-tables.html?edition=tcm%3A77-335242

A new home for everyone on the estate: Woodberry Down and Hackney regeneration

This blog post first appeared on the Hackney Council blog on 13th March 2015.

For the past three years the Council has been discussing with tenants, leaseholders and freeholders in the second phase of Woodberry Down’s regeneration that they will need to move as part of the regeneration process.

For the past 14 months, residents have known that they must move out of their homes by the end of March.

Stories that have appeared in the Hackney Gazette and other newspapers in recent years about estate regeneration often lack the space to include the detailed background and processes involved.

Some estates are simply uneconomical to refurbish and maintain in the long term, so the only way councils can fully carry out Decent Homes commitments for residents is through demolition and rebuilding.

This is the case at Woodberry Down and other estates in Hackney, aging and inadequately-maintained during years of political and financial crisis in the Council that came to head in the late 1990s. Something had to be done to improve living conditions at Woodberry Down, and at the time the only way to do this was through partnership with a developer and a housing association.

There is no longer any government funding to build new homes for social renting, so the only way to pay for this is by building properties for private sale on the estate. They may seem expensively priced, but money from those sales is helping build new homes for social renting, new shops and creating jobs, and paying for local apprenticeships.

To make way for the new homes to be built, tenants are rehoused on the estate in new homes or, if they prefer, somewhere else. The homes owned by leaseholders, about a third of which live elsewhere and rent out their property to tenants, are bought back by the Council.

We offer leaseholders a brand new home on their estate, which is obviously going to be worth more than their old property, but they can simply transfer what they own of their existing home into the new one, and pay no rent on the rest – this is called shared equity. Shared ownership options are also available, depending on individual financial circumstances.

The law requires market value be paid to leaseholders for their properties, based on sales of similar properties in similar condition in the local area, plus up to 10% of the value of the property in compensation, as well as an additional disturbance payment, such as for legal and moving costs.

The law also states that no one should be paid less, or be paid more, than the market value of their property because there happens to be disruptive regeneration going on, or very expensive new flats being sold as part of it.

The Council acts fairly and reasonably, in accordance with the law, to ensure that leaseholders are offered a fair market value for their home. The Council also has a duty to protect the public purse. Compulsory Purchase Orders, such as the one at Woodberry Down, are only confirmed by the Secretary of State and an independent Planning Inspector when both are completely satisfied that the Council has acted reasonably and fairly.

Sales – not website asking prices – of similar properties in similar condition in the local area are what market valuations are based on. Leaseholders and freeholders are encouraged to appoint their own professional surveyor, which the Council will pay for.

On the other hand, some surveyors use properties that are not on an estate, and that are not in similar condition, or the local area, to base their valuations on, falsely raising the expectations of freeholders and leaseholders, perhaps in a bid to get a higher fee for their work.

If no agreement can be reached between the Council’s and the leaseholder’s surveyors, ultimately the judiciary’s Upper Tribunal (Lands Chamber) decides the value, with no further discussion on the matter.

Many people would like to move into a new house with a garden, but it is regrettable, though understandable, that we have only been able to offer leaseholders and freeholders newly-built and existing flats in Hackney, as houses with gardens are by and large extremely difficult to provide while trying to make the best use of available land to build new high quality homes.

So far at Woodberry Down, more than 400 homes for social renting have been built, with tenants moving into another 109 homes in recent weeks, while 206 homes for shared equity/ownership have been built, and hundreds more for sale which pay for the entire programme. At any given time the developer, Berkeley Homes, employs up to 40 local apprentices on site.

You see how lengthy and detailed this process can be; I hope the above clarifies some matters.

Hackney Labour - on the side of struggling renters

This article first appeared on the London Labour Party website on 9th July 2014.

The private rental sector in Hackney has been in the news recently, with the Mirror rightly highlighting the damaging impact rent rises are having on private tenants on a Hoxton estate. But these tenants are not alone and without better regulation, Hackney’s and London’s social diversity and economy will be at risk.

Renting privately is something I know well, as for the last 11 years I’ve been in Hackney I’ve lived in rented flats. I’ve paid the endless fees, dealt with sharp letting agents and fought to limit the annual attempts to increase my rent by 10% or more. Now I’ve been lucky, I’ve broadly had good landlords, had the time and skills to argue my corner and not had to fight to get repairs done. But others I know have not been so lucky facing intimidation, high rents, poor quality housing, exploitation and evictions.

In Hackney, private rents last year according to the GLA went up by 10%, with three and four bedroom properties seeing the highest rises of 15% and 17% respectively. This unregulated rise makes more of the borough unaffordable, increases the housing benefit bill and because of Tories’ Orwellian ‘Affordable Rent’ programme now has an impact on rents in some new social housing. As a Labour Party in Hackney, I am proud that we have worked with Digs a Hackney private renters’ campaign group to improve the information we provide on private renting and the service we offer tenants who need to complain about rogue landlords.

We found that housing was the number one issue in the local elections and in our 2014 manifesto we set how we would respond to some of these challenges: by setting up a Council backed social lettings agency; exploring how we can introduce a borough wide landlord licensing scheme; and by doing all we can to drive rogue landlords and letting agents out of the borough. But to really have an impact on high rents, the uncertainty created by short tenancies and end rip-off fees we need to campaign for a Labour Government and a Labour Mayor of London.

Recently Ed Miliband and Emma Reynolds showed that Labour is listening. For the first time, we now have a Leader and Shadow Housing Minister focusing on the problems faced by private tenants. Their promise to introduce longer tenancies, end letting agent rip off fees and stabilise rent rises is something worth fighting for and we need to campaign with Londoners to ensure we win.

We know where the Tories stand and that is with the landlords and speculators, alongside the Lib Dems they have frustrated attempts to regulate the private rental sector. Recently we saw London MPs taking the fight to the Government in Parliament, but as a London Labour Party we need to get out there and speak up for generation rent, a generation that before now has struggled to find a political voice. Labour are the only party offering hope to private tenants when we say we will tackle high rents, high fees, introduce real regulation and increase the supply of all types housing, but we can only clean up this failing market if we fight to win next May.