By Mary Pimm, SHAC member and Victoria Park Community Association Chair
In November 2024, the Mayor of London initiated a consultation about devising a Key Worker Living Rent (KWLR) plan. It ended early in the spring last year. The Deputy Mayor for Housing, Tom Copley, has recently reported on its findings to those who, like myself, took part (Mayor of London Key Worker Living Rent Homes).
There was a very low level of responses – a mere 47 in all. There are 1,460,200 key workers in London, so no way were their views represented. I can only assume that they weren’t aware of the consultation. Certainly, I only learnt of it a couple of days before the closing deadline. Either that or, as busy people with demanding jobs, they didn’t have the time to complete a complex and technical survey.
Because of the failure to consult all interested parties, the dominant voices were housing associations, councils and other providers, all of whom are only interested in maximising their income, as opposed to considering genuine affordability for key workers.
The new KWLRs are set at 40% of average take-home pay, rather than the generally recognised maximum fair percentage of 30%. They will only apply to new key worker housing built with Mayoral funding, and not to existing key worker estates, like the four ex-Crown Peabody estates.
Prohibitively High Rents Remain
The KWLRs quoted for this year are slightly less than 80% of market rent here in Hackney, but are still prohibitively high. The report assumes that 80% of market rent is genuinely affordable for key workers. This is simply not true.
Given the rent increases on our estate since last year when Peabody arbitrarily removed the London Living Rent cap, a three-bed family home on our estate is now being advertised at £2,400 a month or £28,800 a year – some 71% higher than the previous tenant was paying. Some entry grade key workers don’t even earn this amount as gross pay. A key worker couple each earning £35,000 would be paying half their take home pay on rent.
High key worker rents are already affecting the ability of key workers to live in our properties. This has an effect on local communities, whereby school rolls are falling and consequently, local schools are closing. Millbank, one of our sister ex-Crown Peabody estates which, in Westminster, has the highest market rent in London, also has had several school closures. As a once stable estate under the Crown, is now subject to permanent churn as tenants are forced to move out, mostly due to sky high rents.
This report is a huge disappointment. It will do nothing to assist the many London key workers who already struggle to pay exorbitant rents, or to ensure that London retains its vital key worker workforce.
SHAC’s Unfair and Uncapped Campaign
The affordability of rents in London is acute, but a similar pattern is replicated across towns and cities in England. The root cause and ripple effects destabilise communities everywhere, and the cost to society is high. Action is needed to make sure that all rents are genuinely affordable, and this is why SHAC launched its Unfair and Uncapped: Freeze Rents and Cap Service Charges campaign.
6 February 2026
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