Stealth taxes faced by would-be builders have made London the most expensive city in the world to build, writes David Hirst in today’s Notebook

Letting London build

The Greater London Authority has previously said that, “by some accounts”, the capital is the most expensive city in the world in which to build, and unfortunately these costs cannot be put down to external, economic forces alone.

Together, the huge array of levies, quotas and review processes that face would-be builders amount to stealth taxes on developers: added costs that often make the building of much-needed homes unviable.

In the face of an entrenched housing crisis – and one that is unlikely to be solved by the less than 5,000 building starts now expected in London in 2025 – this is a situation in nobody’s interest: not London’s tenants, trapped in an unforgiving and highly competitive rental market; not investors, sat on the sidelines with enormous amounts of capital ready to go to work; and especially not a government that desperately needs to come good on its ambitious pledge to build 1.5m new homes.

While much of this regulation is........

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