London’s winners and losers
Political and financial uncertainty may be good or bad news for London property, depending on the postcode
in view of the economic and political uncertainty caused by Britain’s vote to leave the European Union. The report underlines the fact that 11% of all SDLT revenue in England and Wales is collected in the two London boroughs of Kensington & Chelsea and Westminster and maintains that the Government increasingly relies on London for this revenue, an overall figure that now exceeds £6 billion a year.
Crucially, it makes the point that although ‘London’s SDLT contribution rose to 44.6% in the year to March 2016—from 41.5% a year earlier —London only accounted for 12.3% of transactions, down from 12.7% the previous year. The picture emerging is one of growing fiscal reliance on areas where transactions are shrinking at the steepest rate’.
The volume of transactions in the key areas of Westminster, Camden, Islington, Kensington & Chelsea and Hammersmith & Fulham all fell by an average of more than 5% per year over the five-year period to March 2016 (Fig 1)—the first time a decline of this magnitude has been registered in this many London boroughs since Land Registry records began, in 1995. Having made it a priority to tackle Britain’s ‘housing deficit’, can Prime Minister Theresa May really afford to kill off London’s golden geese?
But it’s not all doom and gloom in London’s golden postcodes, insists Charlie Willis, who heads up Strutt & Parker’s London residential team.