Wandsworth (pictured) has seen the most gentrification between 2010 and 2016
(Picture: Daniel Lynch)Tower Hamlets, Wandsworth and Newham experienced the most gentrification of any of the London boroughs between the years 2010 and 2016, a new study has found.
Research carried out by think tanks the Runnymede Trust and CLASS showed that housing became less affordable in these areas during this time as middle-classes buyers snapped up property.
Meanwhile, Havering, Bexley and Bromley were the London boroughs to least be affected by gentrification in the past decade
“Gentrification is broadly defined as a process in which poor neighbourhoods are transformed by the entrance of middle-class occupants who trigger a ‘socioeconomic uplift’ in the surrounding area,” the report said.
However, the phenomenon led to the displacement of working class residents as well as black and ethnic minorities in the capital in the 2010s, it added.
In inner London the report said the top ten most gentrified boroughs were Tower Hamlets, Wandsworth, Hackney, Lambeth, Southwark, Hammersmith and Fulham, Islington, the Royal Borough of Greenwich and Lewisham.
While in outer London the top ten were Newham, Ealing, Haringey, Waltham Forest, Brent, Merton, Hounslow, Barnet, the Royal Borough of Kingston upon Thames and Richmond upon Thames.
The study also showed that black and ethnic minority Londoners are almost half as likely to own their own homes as white British people.
Just 35 per cent of black and ethnic minority people are home-owners, compared to 62 per cent of white British people.
Key workers - including teachers and transport workers - are among those most likely to be pushed further out of the city as a result of gentrification, the report said.
Of nearly 300,000 new homes built in the capital during the 2010s, only a third were classed as “affordable”.
The findings have prompted renewed calls for rent controls in the private sector and for more social housing units to be built, while also expanding community-land trusts.
Dr Halima Begum, chief executive of the Runnymede Trust, said: “This research with its ground breaking methodology enables us to for the first time measure gentrification.
“As a proud member of the Tower Hamlets community who was brought up on Brick Lane, I know first-hand the benefits gentrification can bring, as well as its heavy blow.”
So-called “opportunity areas” (OAs), introduced by the former London mayor Ken Livingstone in 2004, were created to keep housing affordable and included areas such as Elephant and Castle, Canada Water and Hackney.
However, gentrification rates were found to be between nine and 13 per cent higher in OAs.
Dr Begum added: “We need to offer businesses support and control to manage the super growth of the area that is on the doorsteps of the City of London.
“Regeneration should not come at the expense of local ethnic minority working class communities.”
CLASS director Ellie Mae O’Hagan said: “Whether we were born in London or moved here, most Londoners want to live in a city that belongs to everybody.
“But today, working class and ethnic minority Londoners are being pushed to the margins of the city as a result of the failure of local authorities and central governments to take care of our communities.
"This report must mark a turning point in how governments manage gentrification.”
She added that rent control “must be introduced immediately” and also called for a social housing programme “as big as our efforts after the Second World War”.
Apsana Begum, Labour MP for Poplar and Limehouse, said the report’s findings highlight the lack of affordable housing in London.
She told the Standard: “It's no surprise that the report has found that ethnic minority communities are the worst hit by this, and are among the most socially excluded parts of London's population when it comes to housing in the capital.
“There is an urgent need for New York-style rent controls, along with legally enforceable price caps and limits being placed on new build home prices, to address these gross inequalities.”
A spokesperson for mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, told the Standard that people were provided with more council homes last year than any year since 1983.
They said: “Sadiq is now consulting on changing the planning guidance to put key workers such as NHS staff, police officers and transport workers at the front of the queue for new genuinely affordable homes to buy and rent.
“He also continues to lobby the government to give him the powers to introduce rent controls to put an end to years of spiralling rents in the capital.
“For too long ordinary Londoners on low and middle incomes simply haven’t been able to save up for a deposit and buy a place of their own. The mayor is committed to bringing this to an end.”
