Jeremy Corbyn has pledged to introduce tough restrictions on regeneration projects to ensure they benefit local people and not private developers or “property speculators”.
If elected, Labour would enforce a tenants’ ballot that would allow residents affected by prospective regeneration plans to vote on whether the development should go ahead.
The Labour Party leader invoked the memory of Grenfell Tower as he announced a Labour review of social housing policy, planning, building regulation and management, which will report back to the party conference next year.
He said: “Housing should be homes for the many, not speculative investments for the few.”
Corbyn also raised the spectre of rent controls, a policy announced in the party’s election manifesto earlier this year.
He said: “Rent controls exist in many cities across the world and I want our cities to have those powers too and tenants to have those protections.”
On Brexit, Corbyn said Labour would “guarantee unimpeded access to the single market”.
He said a Conservative-led Brexit would create a “tax haven on the shore of England”.
Referencing Labour’s plans to nationalise key industries, he said the party would present an alternative economic system that replaced the “failed dogmas of neo-liberalism”.
He added: “2017 may be the year when politics finally caught up with the crash of 2008.”
To send feedback, e-mail Louisa.Clarence-Smith@egi.co.uk or tweet @LouisaClarence or @estatesgazette
