Boris Johnson, speaking at the UK MIPIM property conference, has defended the injection of overseas money into the London housing market saying there was “no logic” to bashing overseas investment, but there was a “social injustice” that Londoners could not afford to live near their workplace. He promised 500,000 affordable new homes for Londoners over the next 10 years.
Source: The Daily Telegraph
While some of us at BKL live out in the sticks (as opposed to out in the Styx, which would make for a very glum commute), a few of us live close enough to our workplace to be able to get here on foot. While Ballards Lane is slightly more urban than it is urbane, a scenic walk is entirely possible: we’re not far from Stephens House & Gardens (and indeed we decamp there for seminars etc every so often), which happens to be home to a newly unveiled statue of Spike Milligan, the best Finchley-based comedian never to write an accountancy blog.
But living close to one’s workplace can backfire. A few years ago, one of our staff was walking home from the office when a car drove by with a kind of octagonal periscopic camera on the top. He later found himself (literally but not spiritually) on an online street-mapping website. The camera had caught him mid-step, in a bizarre posture that gave him the look of a robot doing Morecambe & Wise’s ‘Bring Me Sunshine’ dance. The only saving grace was that his facial features had been blurred beyond recognition, giving him a semblance of anonymity and the ultimate poker face.
Whatever overseas investment may be accepted into the London housing market, Big Brother is entirely home-grown.