LCA signs up to London First's 50,000 Homes Campaign

This week LCA has signed up to London First’s Fifty Thousand Homes Campaign. In signing this pledge we have committed, as a London business and firm to do what we can to help our staff in the current housing crisis.

Whilst this crisis in London is not new news, it is also something successive Governments and Mayors have failed to come up with a comprehensive, long term solution to. Today in London the average house price has risen to £484,716 according to Government figures, in part driven by a severe housing shortage.

London First believes we need to build at least 50,000 homes a year to sustain a population that is growing by a million people a decade. These need to be all types of home and all types of tenure but particularly homes that Londoners and those wanting to work in London can afford. Last year only 23,986 homes were built in London – less than half this target, so no wonder house prices as a proportion of earnings in London are now at the highest they have ever been. This presents those wanting to work in London the conundrum of spending more of their wage on living, on moving further and further out resulting in longer commutes and a potentially greater impact on their work / life balances or giving up on London altogether.

For LCA, as a relatively young and dynamic business keen to retain and attract the brightest of talent we wanted to ensure we could, in a small way support London’s status as a beacon for creativity and enterprise. We are also awake to the fact that we can’t alone and nor can this pledge solve the housing crisis and that it will take the Mayor of London and the National Government along with many of our clients to build the homes needed to meet the Campaign’s target of 50,000 homes a year by 2020.

However if we can help assess our team’s housing needs and commit to supporting those struggling with high housing costs and precarious accommodation through small financial loans or flexibility in working practices, then we will do just that. We are proud to have done our bit but are also realistic to the fact that this is just the beginning.

Link to Pledge website www.fiftythousandhomes.london