South West London is bearing the brunt of the burden of escalating rental costs in the city, according to new figures from the Office of National Statistics.
Kensington & Chelsea, Hammersmith & Fulham, Wandsworth, Lambeth, Richmond upon Thames, and Merton were in the top 12 London areas with the highest jump in rental prices in 2023.
According to the data released on April 25, 30.5% of households in Kensington & Chelsea and 27.9% in Wandsworth experienced a rise in private rent in 2023, placing them among the areas with the highest increases in London.
Richmond Council’s Lead Member for Housing, Councillor Jim Millard, said: “The ONS findings are sadly unsurprising and are yet more evidence of how broken the housing system in the UK has become.
“Whilst this and other councils do what we can to mitigate the current cost of living crisis, only the government can address the deep-rooted structural issues the ONS findings highlight.”
Kensington & Chelsea, Wandsworth, and Hammersmith & Fulham were identified among the top five areas in London with the highest average increase in monthly private rent, with an increase in monthly payments of £273, £210 and £200 respectively amongst affected households in 2023.
Millard said: “Successive governments have failed for generations to build enough homes to keep up with demographic changes.
“The current government’s economic mismanagement has seen mortgage and rental costs soar on the back of runaway inflation, whilst they fiddle at the margins by uplifting housing benefit rates for the current year after freezing them for many years, only to freeze them again for 2025/26.”
The median house price in Kensington & Chelsea has soared to five times the median house price in England & Wales, reaching £1,400,000 compared to £282,500. The average monthly mortgage payments in the area saw a significant rise from £1,596 before 2023 to £1,954 in 2023. Conversely, Croydon maintained some of the lowest median house prices in London at £430,000.
A Kingston Council spokesperson said: “The Council is committed to providing and supporting the development of high-quality and affordable homes for our residents. We are currently undertaking a major regeneration in the borough to provide 2,170 new homes, with 871 new council homes on the Cambridge Road Estate.”
CEO of South West London homelessness charity SPEAR Tim Fallon highlighted the link between high rental and mortgage payments and increased homelessness, stating that the connection is “well established”.
Fallon added: “In March 2023, over half the people sleeping rough in the boroughs of Richmond, Kingston, Wandsworth, Merton and Sutton were doing so for the first time.
“SPEAR works with people experiencing or at risk of homelessness to find a place to call home and provides a range of services, but to end homelessness for good, we need more genuinely affordable homes.”
According to the activist group Generation Rent, more households were rendered homeless than those able to purchase their first home in England from September 2022 to September 2023.
London’s Combined Homelessness and Information Network (CHAIN) reported that more than 10,000 people slept rough in London between April 2022 and March 2023, marking an approximate 20% increase from the previous year. According to new data released by CHAIN in April 2024, that figure rose to approximately 15,800 in 2023/2024.
CEO of South West London housing charity Evolve Carmen White echoed the sentiment that more must be done by the government to address the rental crisis.
White said: “It’s crucial for local authorities, policymakers, and community stakeholders to adopt a multifaceted approach to address these challenges. This includes increasing the supply of affordable housing, implementing fair rental regulations, and ensuring adequate support services and early preventative measures.”
Featured image credit: Jpmaytum via Wikimedia Commons (CC-BY-SA-4.0)
