"The impending London commercial property crash is a major opportunity to relieve London's current housing crisis" says Tony Brown, the LPUK candidate for Mayor of London.

"Meta has chosen to pay a £149million break fee for its Regent's Park Office whilst HSBC is exiting its iconic place in Canary Wharf for smaller, less expensive premises. These are examples of falling occupancy rates which are less than half pre-covid levels. It means values are likely to fall by up to 40% with massive effects on London's property market and prosperity", says the LPUK candidate but he adds that "handled properly and imaginatively, there could be an upside for London's Housing crisis."

Then he laid down a challenge for the current incumbent. "I call upon The Mayor and the government to facilitate office to housing conversion by relaxing planning rules, speeding up conversion permissions and creating a presumption in favour of the switch with permission granted automatically unless there is a really significant downside".

Tony also sees it as an opportunity to address the chronic shortage of parking in London. Having lived and worked in the European Parliament for ten years, he wants to emulate the excellent system of underground garages and car parking found all over Brussels. He would therefore encourage existing underground garages to be kept for the new residents' use and for underground parking to be added as part of the conversion."

"Unlike the economically illiterate Sadiq Khan or the green fellow-travelling Tories, I am literally the only candidate offering a practical programme to maintain Londoners' quality of life and freedom of choice, and to address the massively damaging chronic shortage of housing people can afford."