Home is where the money is

joe_blotts

Very interesting article from the Economist about living in London. In places it sounds almost 'Victorianesq'.



A DOOR BESIDE a solicitor’s office on Plashet Road in West Ham, east of the Olympic Park, leads down a narrow alley into a back garden that has three roughly constructed brick sheds in it. One seems empty; each of the other two is perhaps 15 feet (5 metres) square, divided into two tiny bedrooms and a small living and cooking space, with a toilet and shower in a cupboard. Shahid Ali, a Pakistani labourer, shares one of these with two other workers. It has no electricity and there are holes in the floor where the tiles are broken.

The other shed is home to Farzana Ahmed, an MBA student from Lahore, who lives there with her husband and two children—and, temporarily, her cousin and cousin’s husband. Outside her front door there is a heap of builder’s rubbish and a circle of armchairs and sofas under a pink, rain-soaked awning, which she says was her landlord’s attempt to create a shisha (hookah) lounge. Her house is neat; on top of the small television there are plastic flowers and two Mother’s Day cards, beautifully drawn and written in English. Mrs Ahmed’s family is paying £700 a month for their shed, Mr Ali and his housemates £500.....

http://www.economist.com/node/21557531

Good Read:)

matbe

Probably luxury accomadation compared to what they had in
Lahore.

chewmylegoff

"Aerial shots of some parts of the capital show one or two of these sheds in almost every garden. They are the consequence of the high cost of housing, which is the result of rising demand and constrained supply."

Some parts eh? I wonder where they are then, because if you look at aerial shots of Plashnet Road it's pretty tricky to see anything that looks like a shed, let alone one or two in "almost every garden". Maybe the economist have access to some higher definition aerial shots than googlemaps do...

ash28

joe_blotts wrote: »

Very interesting article from the Economist about living in London. In places it sounds almost 'Victorianesq'.



A DOOR BESIDE a solicitor’s office on Plashet Road in West Ham, east of the Olympic Park, leads down a narrow alley into a back garden that has three roughly constructed brick sheds in it. One seems empty; each of the other two is perhaps 15 feet (5 metres) square, divided into two tiny bedrooms and a small living and cooking space, with a toilet and shower in a cupboard. Shahid Ali, a Pakistani labourer, shares one of these with two other workers. It has no electricity and there are holes in the floor where the tiles are broken.

The other shed is home to Farzana Ahmed, an MBA student from Lahore, who lives there with her husband and two children—and, temporarily, her cousin and cousin’s husband. Outside her front door there is a heap of builder’s rubbish and a circle of armchairs and sofas under a pink, rain-soaked awning, which she says was her landlord’s attempt to create a shisha (hookah) lounge. Her house is neat; on top of the small television there are plastic flowers and two Mother’s Day cards, beautifully drawn and written in English. Mrs Ahmed’s family is paying £700 a month for their shed, Mr Ali and his housemates £500.....

http://www.economist.com/node/21557531

Good Read:)

Slough had (still has) the same problem - there were articles about it on the local news.

http://www.economist.com/node/17209552

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1358874/Shedding-rise-Landlords-illegally-renting-outhouses-makeshift-beds-immigrants.html

So far, his team has found about 500—housing more than 1,000, mainly east European migrants—that contravene safety or planning rules. They commonly rent for £130-150 ($210-240) a week

It's been a problem in Slough for a few years - and I think Southall has the same problem.

http://www.ealinggazette.co.uk/ealing-news/local-ealing-news/2012/03/01/southall-is-hotspot-for-illegal-outhouses-64767-30440939/

I guess anywhere you have a high immigrant population and expensive housing, you are going to have accommodation issues.

ruggedtoast

Its another nice consequence of Labour's immigration policy. The council's most effective are also unable or unwilling to do much about it as if they displace these people then they will have to home them.

joe_blotts

ruggedtoast wrote: »

Its another nice consequence of Labour's immigration policy. The council's most effective are also unable or unwilling to do much about it as if they displace these people then they will have to home them.

Yes the article goes into greater depth on that. If they clamp down on this kind of thing it will only exacerbate London's already chronic housing shortage.

ecoguy

I thought it was a very interesting article. Their preferred solution was to lop off a section of the green belt in London and build new houses there. A possible solution I suppose. I think we may need to revisit high rise living, but avoid the mistakes of the past. Anything that can slow the growth of housing prices in London would be welcome.

guidingdirections

Hi

Why don't they build high buildings like in America?

joe_blotts

guidingdirections wrote: »

Hi

Why don't they build high buildings like in America?

read the article, it covers that topic

kabayiri

Shed living was a big enough issue to be covered in the 2011 Census help systems. It's probably a wider spread issue than just London.

paddyrg

Mind you, there are some very expensive, very tiny mews/converted garage/shed places in Knightsbridge.