Do You Want To Play Boris Monopoly?

For the past six years, Boris Johnson has touted his “opportunity areas” as the solution to London’s housing crisis. But would these present much of an opportunity for you? Let me take you on a little tour around Boris’ monopoly board…

The finest flat on Old Kent Road

If you're hard up, you can always stick a house on Old Kent Road for £30, right?

In Boris Johnson’s monopoly set, Old Kent Road is an "opportunity area" for new development, and a new flat in this development would set you back £210,000. That’s six times the average household income, so you had better pass Go a few more times.

Land on this beautiful village

Monopoly doesn’t have villages, but London seems to be full of them thanks to property developers and estate agents.

If you were lucky enough to land on Hale Village, this opportunity area in Tottenham, you would have paid an average of £220,000 for a slice of village life.

What’s in the community chest?

Developers are supposed to put money into the pot for affordable housing, which used to mean half the homes would be for people on low incomes who were given secure tenancies and affordable rents.

But Boris has been letting them get away with as little as ten per cent, and was unable to tell me how many social rented homes will be built on his opportunity areas. Maybe he's hoping you'll go to jail?

Towers, not hotels, win the day

Another much-loved innovation in Boris Monopoly is landing on a council estate, demolishing it without the permission of the other players who live there, and replacing it with stunningly attractive new flats, like this tower block in Woodberry Down in Hackney where flats sold at an average price of £350,000.

Move to Mayfair on The Thames

Boris' monopoly doesn't have any utilities or industry, that's all being cleared away in the Vauxhall Nine Elms opportunity area for luxury flats.

If you land on this most prestigious of opportunity areas you could buy a flat in Vauxhall Tower, St George’s Wharf, which averaged a whopping £2,117,000, around sixty times the average household income in London!

The bit Boris removed

Rich investors needn’t worry about landing on the taxes, because Boris is against anything that will reduce your appetite for speculating on property. That would stop his developer and investor friends raking in the rents!

So let's change the rules...

The only way most Londoners can win at Boris Monopoly is if we change the rules.

Monopoly would be a lot more fun for average Londoners if the Mayor pushed for taxes on land and property to stop speculation, got a budget big enough to refurbish and build social housing so people on low and average incomes could afford to live across the board, and lobbied for better rights for half the players left renting from private landlords.

For more, read my report on the 'crumbs' Boris is leaving for Londoners, and what we can do about it.