How to bring down London house prices (LSE Blog)

AndyGuil

London creates it's own environment that is self reinforcing. It is mostly private doing.

Zero_Sum

AndyGuil wrote: »

London creates it's own environment that is self reinforcing. It is mostly private doing.

So ignoring the £2,700 per head population they get for transport
(we get £5)

Ignoring that's where the government is located & much of the jobs that go with it

Westminster council makes £50m in car parking fees, yet has the 2nd lowest council tax rates in the country.

AndyGuil

Zero_Sum wrote: »

So ignoring the £2,700 per head population they get for transport
(we get £5)

Ignoring that's where the government is located & much of the jobs that go with it

Westminster council makes £50m in car parking fees, yet has the 2nd lowest council tax rates in the country.

Just being tiny bit selective.. the transport system is public run but paid for by Londoners as they are the ones that use it, it isn't free. Public sector employment is a far smaller proportion in London. It's success is built upon private operations.

Council tax is a local tax it is for Westminster to decide what they need.

Generali

Zero_Sum wrote: »

Again..............

Governments create an environment whereby they make it more attractive to invest in London. As such other regions get left behind.


There's a much much bigger picture than that your painting

It's not as simple as saying London raises x, the rest does y

It has become a virtuous circle: London is the place to go if you want to have pretty much guaranteed work if you're not too fussy about what you do. If you work hard and are a bit savvy you can turn that into a good income.

As a result, motivated people go to London to work.

It's very hard to see what to do about it. The problem is that other areas need to raise their game. I don't see it as feasible to take even more tax out of London to redistribute to the regions.

Regional UK had great economies. Thanks to their enthusiastic embracing of the Trade Union movement and their desire to squeeze every last penny and more from their employers they destroyed the companies they worked for. When the productive parts of the country removed the subsidies to those companies, they collapsed because they weren't making a profit.

Masomnia

London isn't competing with the provinces for investment, it's competing with other major cities like Paris, Zurich, Shanghai, whomever else. Punishing London won't benefit the provinces, it'll benefit other major cities abroad.

Zero_Sum

AndyGuil wrote: »

Just being tiny bit selective.. the transport system is public run but paid for by Londoners as they are the ones that use it, it isn't free. Public sector employment is a far smaller proportion in London. It's success is built upon private operations.

Council tax is a local tax it is for Westminster to decide what they need.

Running cost yes, but the actual infrastructure costs are paid by the government & they get an unfair proportion.

Westminster council still get central government funding when they clearly don't need as much.

Generali

Zero_Sum wrote: »

Running cost yes, but the actual infrastructure costs are paid by the government & they get an unfair proportion.

Westminster council still get central government funding when they clearly don't need as much.

No, Westminster Council are very efficient so don't need as much money.

AndyGuil

Zero_Sum wrote: »

Running cost yes, but the actual infrastructure costs are paid by the government & they get an unfair proportion.

Westminster council still get central government funding when they clearly don't need as much.

An unfair proportion of tax is paid into that pot by London on that basis. Sone how I don't think the kind of infrastructure such as crossrail is necessary for other parts of the country. This will be operated on by private companies who will pay the government for the privilege. I don't think they will be quite so keen if it was crossrail for Manchester for example, it isn't necessary.

antrobus

antrobus wrote: »

Or put the Green Party into power. That would certainly do it.

Actually I'd like to amend this previous response.

I'd quite forgotten (please forgive me) that the Green Party had a manifesto commitment to end the zero-rating of VAT on new dwellings. Obviously, charging 20% VAT on new builds would bring house building to a shuddering halt, and this sudden curtailment of supply might well cause an increase in house prices.

This would, of course, only be temporary, as the collapse of the house building sector, together with the impact of all their other tax increases, would trigger a deep and lasting recession which would bring house prices crashing down to a very affordable level indeed.

antrobus

Zero_Sum wrote: »

...Actually thinking about it, Banking crisis that happened in London didn't it (with it being what it is? )...

Don't you mean Edinburgh? After all that's where the head offices of both RBS and HBOS were to be found last time I looked.

Zero_Sum wrote: »

....Can we have our money back?

Well you could write to Salmond and ask if you like. I doubt you'd get a reply.

I'm not sure who you'd need to write to regarding Northern Rock though. Who is in charge of Newcastle these days?