SUMMARY STATEMENT
Camden Council is failing to deliver the housing that people need- safe, affordable, human-scale homes to eliminate housing insecurity and enable a caring and resilient society.
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Councillors exaggerate the societal benefits of their current housing policies, while pretending that there’s no better option (TINA) given the systemic constraints on finance. Yet other London councils are making much more progress to deliver social and genuinely affordable housing, including neighbouring Islington.
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The Council is over-reliant on private developers to build council-rent and affordable homes. But developers are not interested in building social and genuinely affordable homes, and are able make reductions in affordable housing delivery after planning consent on the basis of ‘viability assessments’. The Council is not taking responsibility for making housing more affordable in the Borough, preferring partnership with property developers, with whom they have a dependent relationship lacking proper public scrutiny.
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Housing repairs are chaotic and badly managed. Improving existing homes is not a high priority for the Council, which fails to take the necessary steps to reform the housing repairs service. There is a lack of focus on achieving significant improvements to Camden’s housing stock overall.
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The Council’s approach to improving existing social homes results in demolition and rebuilding of existing homes, which is bad for residents and the environment. Camden’s housing plans do not take the actions needed to reduce climate breakdown and environmental damage, and are contributing to the crisis.
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Camden is moving away from building new social homes itself and instead entering into private development agreements, which carry a high risk of financial mismanagement and poor-quality, over-dense development. This is a betrayal of previous generations’ efforts to provide good quality social housing in the Borough. The Council must return to ‘direct delivery’, or else seek socially focused partnerships that are beneficial for the community.
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DETAILED PROPOSALS FOR ACTION
1- Camden’s council homes:
PROBLEM: some are in a poor condition, eg. without insulation to roofs, without extract ventilation in kitchens and bathrooms. The result is unhealthy homes.
SOLUTION: increase investment in repair and maintenance, with a strategic approach.
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2- Housing repairs service in Camden:
PROBLEM: repairs are slow and inefficient, leaving people in unsafe homes. Money is wasted through compensation and legal fees.
SOLUTION: overhaul the management of repair work, with proper design, specification and record keeping. Train, upskill and expand the Direct Labour force (workers employed directly by the council), and get residents genuinely involved in the process.
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3- Camden’s funding crisis:
PROBLEM: Camden’s Housing Revenue Account (HRA) is under-funded, due to increased costs for repairs and supply of new homes.
SOLUTIONS: demand assistance from Central Government to ease pressure on local authority HRAs, through increased direct funding and release from debt repayment obligations. This pressure should not be relieved through rent rises and sale of Camden’s housing stock.
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4- Condition of private rented homes:
PROBLEM: there are around 28,000 privately rented homes in Camden, many of which are in a poor condition, harmful to the health and wellbeing of residents. Camden Council is not inspecting private rented homes sufficiently to carry out Health and Safety inspections. In the year 2023/24, 426 inspections were made; 2024-25, only 295. This resulted in 11 enforcement notices in 2023/24 and 9 in 2024/25.
SOLUTION: inspection and enforcement should be a Council priority to improve conditions of private rented homes. The Council should increase the number of inspection officers to meet need.
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5- Housing affordability crisis:
PROBLEM: Camden is one of the least affordable council areas in London, with those on median incomes paying 51.7% of their gross earnings on rent. Only Kensington and Chelsea, Westminster and Wandsworth are less affordable. High rents are locking people out of secure homes and driving all but the well-off from the Borough. The cross-subsidy model (where profit from sale of private homes is used to fund affordable housing) is not going to solve the problem, but will make it worse. It have been shown by research that increasing the numbers of expensive private homes does not make housing more affordable but drives the further inflation in housing costs.
SOLUTIONS: assess local housing need by ward. Develop plans to meet actual need. Use public land for supplying new social-rent and genuinely affordable homes. Stop reliance on cross-subsidy model and explore alternative ways of funding social and genuinely affordable housing, with a cross-party task force set up to examine the options as matter of urgency.
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6- Supply of council homes:
PROBLEM: Camden has a high number of vacant social-rent homes compared to other London councils, and these are left empty for an average of 170 days. This reduces availability of council homes by around 2%.
SOLUTIONS: create a task force to prioritise action of getting empty council homes back into use. Repair homes rather than selling them off- even if expensive, it is much lower cost than building a new home.
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PROBLEM: Camden’s Community Investment Programme (CIP) has provided only 186 additional council homes over the past 15 years (see FOI 10520). This does not meet Camden’s housing need, with 8,028 households on the social housing waiting list as of January 2025. CIP has raised housing costs and asset values, rather than housing quality for lower-income people, who have been marginalised by social cleansing. The effects have been predicted for over a decade.
SOLUTIONS: Camden Council should reform CIP and abandon the failed cross-subsidy model and use lower-cost, lower-risk development approaches, focused on existing communities. Demand increased funding from Central Government for increased direct funding for additional council homes.
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PROBLEM: Relying on private developers for estate regeneration results in reduced quality of housing provided: over-dense, anti-social with unacceptable impacts on neighbours and nature.
SOLUTION: invest in and expand the Council’s in-house development team, so that they can effectively manage development of social housing themselves.
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7- Impact of Camden’s estate regeneration schemes:
PROBLEM: Camden’s ‘demolition and rebuild’ schemes have caused distress for people forced to leave their homes, have broken up existing communities, and caused misery for residents living on estates due to continued noise and dust.
SOLUTIONS: prioritise refurbishment and infill schemes, as at Kiln Place.
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8- Low quality development:
PROBLEM: Camden’s current housing developments are high-rise, out-of-scale with the existing areas and will destroy the existing character of established neighbourhoods. The amount of green space available for people is being reduced, which impacts wellbeing and mental health.
SOLUTIONS: the local planning authority is failing to ensure good quality development and must do better to stand up to the ‘growth’ driven agenda that is causing damage to people’s quality of life. Insist on schemes that relate to the existing scale of neighbourhoods and enable social interaction and community resilience, ie. human-scale development with enough green space that enables human flourishing.
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9- Climate change:
PROBLEM: Camden’s current housing developments are mostly built with heavy concrete construction causing a huge amount of carbon emissions that increase risk from climate breakdown.
SOLUTIONS: permit housing schemes only if they result in low-medium levels ‘up-front’ carbon emissions from construction, by using less carbon -intensive building solutions, such as Modern Methods of Construction (MMC) and refurbishment/ retrofit. Require the up-front carbon targets set out in the UK Net Zero Building Standard.
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PROBLEM: Camden’s current housing developments are not enabling adaptation to climate change which is already causing overheating and flooding in Camden. High-rise densely-packed blocks cause local temperatures to rise (the ‘heat-island’ effect). Problems will become worse with food scarcity and economic difficulties.
SOLUTIONS: new housing should be built with adequate space between them, with space for trees. Adequate external space should be provided including for food growing, and adequate communal space for social activities.
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PROBLEM: retrofitting Camden’s housing is going at snail’s pace and does not help meet our national commitment to ‘net zero’.
SOLUTIONS: prioritise maintenance and repair as a pre-requisite. Camden’s Direct Labour force should be enabled through skills training to carry out retrofit work. Engagement with residents about retrofit should be carried out across all estates so that each estate as a ‘maintenance and retrofit plan’ for the future.
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PROBLEM: development results in loss of mature trees which provide eco-system services such as removal of pollution (including carbon emissions), cooling, biodiversity support. The loss of canopy cover reduces our ability to adapt to climate change.
SOLUTION: Prioritise the retention of mature trees and established green space.
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If you have any comments or suggestions please email housingrebellioncamden@gmail.com. THANK YOU.
Housing Rebellion Camden 