Olympic builders could plunge east London into housing crisis

Private landlords in the London 2012 Olympic area could have their homes seized as part of a set of radical measures proposed by a member of the Olympic Village development team to ensure affordable housing in the area.

The plan comes in a hard-hitting report by housing association East Thames Group, which fears that local residents in the vicinity of the Olympics face eviction once construction of the Games begins and thousands of workers need homes.

The proposal involves allowing social landlords to use compulsory purchase orders to seize private rented housing, particularly in areas closest to the Stratford site. This way, the homes would fall under the control of registered social landlords, which could rent them out at a controlled, lower rent to local residents.

The East Thames Group 2012 – Home Games report points out that private landlords will be looking to profit from the higher rents paid by construction workers and Olympic Games visitors. Tenants on lower rents could be forced out to make room for them, increasing homelessness in the area. The report says: “The Olympics are likely to have a significant impact on housing for people on low incomes, particularly in the private rented sector, and there is the need to recognise the possible impacts and to take steps to deal with these.”

Peter Rogers, chair of the Strategic Forum Olympic Task Group, which acts as a liaison between the construction industry and the Olympic authorities, said he believed one of the main issues was that gentrification of the Stratford area would price local people out of the market. He said: “The local workforce will be pushed further out, as we can see is happening already at White City [in west London].”

The East Thames report lays out a series of proposals that councils should consider to protect local residents from being thrown out of their homes. These include:

• Plan against an anticipated surge in criminal gangs acquiring property for purposes such as large-scale prostitution and people trafficking
• Restrict change of use of properties from rented rooms and boarding houses to tourist accommodation.
• Introduce a rent-capping mechanism to private sector rented housing within the five Olympic boroughs from the earliest possible date until several years after 2012 to protect against profiteering
• Set up rapid response advisory services to serve those facing unlawful evictions, rent increases and pressure to sell
• Retain a pool of housing for lower and middle income groups to ensure that, post Games, Stratford does not become an area just for the very poor and the affluent.

The study points out that provision must be made “to accommodate many thousands of additional construction workers for five years before 2012”. At the peak of construction, there will be 9,000 workers on the Olympic site.

A spokesperson for East Thames said: “We are still working with various authorities to try and come up with answers [to the problem of accommodating construction workers] but we have nothing definite to report at this stage.”

An Olympic Delivery Authority spokesperson said it was still finalising its logistics plans. He said: “The peak of construction activity is still a little way away in 2009/10. We will be looking to employ a significant number of people in the local area and anticipate that many more will use the improved public transport links to travel into the site from surrounding areas.”

It is understood that East Thames is in discussions with the London boroughs most affected by the construction work, Hackney, Newham and Waltham Forest, who are expected to reach a decision on which measures to take forward in the next six months.

One source close to the process said the construction workers’ homes could be non-permanent units. The source said: “There have been initial conversations about what type of accommodation could be provided and where – could it, for example, be moveable once it was finished with after the five years construction? Could we use open land for the duration and then return it to public space once the construction was finished?”