This month, Inside Croydon columnist Andrew Fisher interviews Fiona Fletcher-Smith, the chief executive of one of the country’s largest housing associations, L&Q, and hears what policy changes she believes new Prime Minister Andy Burnham needs to implement if the government is to end the housing crisis.
Fletcher-Smith has nearly 30 years of experience in the housing sector, including senior roles at the Greater London Authority working with the then Mayor, Boris Johnson.
Fletcher-Smith lives in Croydon, and is also the chair of the Court of Governors at the Whitgift Foundation.
Last month, under her leadership, L&Q undertook a £1billion sale of its private housing business – more than 3,000 rental homes – to better focus and fund its core purpose as a social housing provider in Greater London and Greater Manchester.
And Fletcher-Smith has a message for Burnham and whoever might be the housing secretary in the new cabinet: they need to go further, and faster, at delivering more homes for social rent.
“I know it’s controversial, but the crisis in London is so extreme, whatever lever you’ve got, you’ve got to pull it,” Fletcher-Smith tells Fisher when he asks about recent moves by housing secretary Steve Reed and current Mayor of London Sir Sadiq Khan to reduce the percentage of “affordable” housing when granting planning permission to developers.
And Fletcher-Smith offers strong reasons for accelerating the building of housing.
“If you think, 1-in-21 children woke up this morning in temporary accommodation… we’re seeing 104 children died in the last five years in temporary accommodation, where that accommodation is linked to their death…
“We have got kids who are unable to learn to walk because they don’t have enough space on the floor to crawl.”
In the insightful and lively interview, Fletcher-Smith delves deep into the economic policies that housing providers, in the private and public sector, need in order to make possible the task of delivering the millions of new homes demanded.
She even argues that building the right kind of homes, available on the right kind of terms, could generate billions in new revenue in London every year.
- The Andrew Fisher Interview is premium content, available free to Inside Croydon paying subscribers. To sign up and listen to the interview with Fiona Fletcher-Smith, click here
Previous Andrew Fisher Interviews include:
PAID ADS: To advertise your services or products to our 10,000 weekday visitors to the site, as featured on Google News Showcase, email us inside.croydon@btinternet.com for our unbeatable ad rates
- If you have a news story about life in or around Croydon, or want to publicise your residents’ association or business, or if you have a local event to promote, please email us with full details at inside.croydon@btinternet.com
As featured on Google News Showcase
- Our comments section on every report provides all readers with an immediate “right of reply” on all our content. Our comments policy can be read by clicking here
Inside Croydon is a member of the Independent Community News Network
Shocking we’ve failed to build enough houses. Why we don’t build new well designed towns is a mystery. Satellite images show less than 5% of land in the UK is built on. A BBC article’The Illusion of a Concrete Britain’, delves into this.