Ask anyone who has recently moved home or is looking for somewhere to rent in London at the moment: it can become a little bleak, to put it lightly.
Rooms or flats that seem reasonably priced seem to be snapped up in actual seconds, and many properties on the market to rent can often feel like a small space for a hefty price. Prices that have gone up by 15% in the last year.
It would hardly be a hot take to suggest that something needs to change when it comes to renting in London, and now Mayor Sadiq Khan has once again called for just that, suggesting a rent freeze in the capital to help cope with soaring prices amidst the cost of living crisis.
The Mayor cited concerning figures on the rise of asking prices for rent in London, and has called an emergency meeting to discuss the emergency of private renting in the capital, where the £2,343-a-month average is more the double of what is asked for in other parts of the country. The summit will call politicians together alongside private renters, advocacy groups and charities today (November 14) to discuss solutions.
Mayor Sadiq Khan said: “London’s private renters are facing a triple whammy with rising rents, bills, and the cost of household essentials putting a major strain on their finances.
“Ministers must take this crisis seriously and act now. There is no time to waste so we have come together today to speak with one voice.”
Earlier in the London Mayor cited worrying statistics from the Spare Room rental index, which found the average price of a room in London to be £815-per-month this year, up from £708 in 2021.
Moreover, it was found last year that Londoners, on average, spent 40% of their pay packet in 2021 on rent each month, whereas the number for the rest of England stood at around 23%. The average cost of a room in the UK (excluding London) stood at £535 in the second quarter of 2022.
As shown by the infographic in the Mayor’s tweet, rent has gone up in some London boroughs by far higher than the city-wide average, with Eltham And Mottingham (19.8%) and Abbey Wood (16.2%) enduring the highest rises.
It’s not the first time Sadiq Khan has called for rent freezes in the capital, either. Last August saw him cite damning statistics about the situation for renters in London, and n March he called for ministers to allow him to freeze private rents across the city for two years. Plus, in 2019 he called for more powers over rent control in the big smoke. These powers have not been granted to the London Mayor, but there’s a first time for everything, right? Let’s see.