Crossrail 2: TfL 'levy' could force nearby home owners to stump up millions for project

lisyloo

kabayiri wrote: »

Let's be honest. That sort of amount does not even touch the sides.

Even if it raised £200m, it's meaningless. This project is tens of billions, not millions.

It'd have to be a lot higher to be any sort of meaningful contribution.

Then I'd say it's an issue.
Even if homes have increased in value by £xxxx that is not liquid and it may not be easy for everyone to just move (if for example they put in a stairlift and wet room).

westernpromise

Time for some Fermi estimates (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fermi_problem).

The cost is being put at £30 billion.

This proposed levy is on those within a 2-mile radius of any proposed station. A 2-mile radius is about 12.5 square miles, and there are about 60 Crossrail 2 stations, so an area of about 750 square miles of London and suburbs is caught.

The area of Greater London is 600 square miles, with 8.6 million people in it. This implies that more than 8 million people would be caught in these 750 square miles around the stations. These areas won't all be as densely populated as London, however, so let's assume that the number of people captured is 3.6 million, in 1.5 million households of 2.4 people apiece (2.4 being the UK average household size).

Conveniently them we can see that the cost per household would be £30,000,000,000 / 1,500,000 which is £20,000 per household.

Even if amortised over 10 years, that's £2,000 a year. And of course after 10 years the argument will be made that those who've been paying it for 10 years must be rich, so they can keep doing so after the 10 years is up.

The only way this would be remotely fair is if the state allowed anyone who doesn't want to benefit from this supposed windfall to sell and replace their house with all transaction penalties (i.e. SDLT) waived. Moving costs would be deductible against income tax that year and rent paid should also be tax deductible. You can't fairly levy the tax without allowing the usual offsets otherwise it is indeed just state theft.

Anyone who buys into the area does so knowing that they're in for £20,000 of extra tax and can then take a view on whether they think this is a good bet or not.

Andy_L

westernpromise wrote: »

The question it raises for me is where do you stop. If the council grants planning permission for a Waitrose nearby, should your council tax go up? If the council approves a gypsy camp or a sewage farm, will your council tax go down?

If they'd bothered with the revaluing exercise instead of bottling it then that sort of thing would have affected your house value which would have then influenced your CT. Instead we're stuck using house valuations over 25 years old.

Sapphire

Perhaps big businesses that operate in London (including property companies, for example) and their owners should be made to come up with the money?

Not sure how a fair system could be concocted using taxpayers' money, in particular because there would be many people who wouldn't use the new train system very much, and many that were not on high incomes. Certainly don't think people should be forced to move out of their homes for a new rail system.

westernpromise

The valuations should be an irrelevance though, because a house in 1991 is the same house today, and if it's not, i.e. it's been extended, it has also been revalued.

The fairest system would be charge per square foot, with an adjustment for reduced occupancy. This would also tend to equalise the council tax on similar sized properties wherever they are. In 1991 there were plenty of £300k houses in the south-east, but none to speak of north of Watford, so your 6-bedroom Victorian pile was in Band H in Surrey but Band A in Newcastle on Tyne.

GreatApe

Why not just fix the idiocy that was to put 40%+ council homes in zone 2 right next to the big employment hubs? Sell Dow zone 2 council homes to 10% of the stock and you've fixed all the transport issues. Less transport hell less miles done less pollution more free time. The only downside is Diane Abbot can no longer rely on first generation immigrants and social tenants to give a supermajority to a incapable dim women

Thrugelmir

westernpromise wrote: »

Conveniently them we can see that the cost per household would be £30,000,000,000 / 1,500,000 which is £20,000 per household.

Even if amortised over 10 years, that's £2,000 a year.

You've overlooked the additional revenues that will be generated. Also much of the capital infrastructure has a lifespan of many decades. First tube tunnels were opened in 1863.