From City AM:
It may be more at home ferrying workers across the capital - but now Transport for London (TfL) has announced plans to build homes, as well. In fact, it reckons it can create 10,000 homes in London.
More than 300 acres of land owned by TfL across 75 sites has been put forward for development. The organisation suggests it will create 10m sq ft of development over the next 10 years. Even more encouraging for aspiring home owners: 67 per cent of the sites are in zones one and two.
TfL, one of the London's largest landowners, is currently narrowing down its shortlist of 16 developers for a framework of partners, which can then pitch to develop housing schemes on the sites…
The scheme is part of TfL's plan to generate £3.4bn in revenue over the next 10 years from advertising, sponsorship partnerships and property development, which it will reinvest into updating the transport network.
This is how a corrupt government works - from Venezuela to Thatcher's Right to Buy to today's London - sell off stuff cheap to your friends and family/voters who then sell them back to your best mates, the bankers and landlords/part donors.
If TfL, a government body, just built those 10,000 homes itself, with a clear profit (land/location rent) on each of £20,000 per home per year, it could bank £200 million a year. Over ten years, that's £2 billion. In the next ten years, another £2 bn or £3 bn. And so on.
Considerably more than what they hope to get under current plans, even assuming that most of the £3.4 billion from "advertising, sponsorship partnerships and property development" is the last bit.