Published: 10.10.08

A Brighton academic has been part of a group advising Boris Johnson, the new Mayor of London, on a meaningful definition of affordable housing.

Policy makers often talk about 'affordable housing', especially when publicising the amount of 'low cost' housing to be built as part of planning agreements. But 'affordable' is defined, if it is defined at all, as simply meaning available at or below full market cost or rent – or as some proportion of average incomes.

Increasingly research is showing that this 'affordable housing' is simply not remotely affordable to many local people seeking housing.

The term 'affordable' has now been defined in monetary terms by a team of researchers led by Professor Peter Ambrose of the Health and Social Policy Research Centre, working closely with the Zacchaeus 2000 Trust and London Citizens.

Using the Minimum Income Standards methodology the team researched the local costs (in east London) of all essential non-housing items of expenditure such as food, energy, transport, childcare, etc. Then, assuming a household of two adults and two children with the adults earning the London Living Wage of £7.45 per hour, they calculated what was left to pay housing costs. The figure is about £135 per week. Any housing, whether rented or owned, costing more than this figure per week is simply not affordable.

If housing costs are more than this then expenditure on other essential items has to be cut. This puts peoples' health and safety is at risk and/or they may well have to rely on Housing Benefit – which introduces the risk of the 'poverty trap' and difficulty in transferring into work.

For £135 per week the household can access only local authority or housing association accommodation. They cannot access privately-rented housing or Low Cost Home Ownership.

At an Assembly organised by London Citizens this April the new London Mayor publicly undertook that this calculation for affordability should be carried out annually and the resultant figure published. The calculation is also to be rolled out shortly for other areas of the country and for other types of household.