‘Mayor of London Boris Johnson has set out his plans for London in his Vision 2020, in which he urges greater financial autonomy for the city and the right for local councils to borrow to build extra homes.
In the 80-page document Mr Johnson warns the capital will reach an all-time population high of 8.7m in 2016, approaching 10m by 2030.
Population growth would require at least another 450,000 jobs in the next 10 years and a further 400,000 homes and overall London would need another 1m homes by the mid-2030s.
On the right to borrow for house-building, he argues “since the public sector clearly gains a bankable asset there is no need for this to appear on the books as public borrowing”.
He also proposes a “use it or lose it” system of planning permission. “Those developers who are sitting idly on their land should be threatened with compulsory purchase,” he writes.’
Source: Financial Times