A sustainable increase in London's housing supply?

It has become commonplace to speak of London’s ‘housing crisis’, as if the situation were sudden and unanticipated. In fact it is neither: the undersupply of new housing in the capital has been a persistent problem for at least thirty years, and the likely consequences were clear to those who looked closely at the issue. The position has worsened rapidly in the last decade but is part of a longer-term, systemic failure. It is therefore worth starting by looking at fundamentals. To clarify these pressures we make use of three important figures set out in the Mayor’s Housing Strategy, published late last year.