Public conference about the holiday short let explosion

On Wednesday 13 September at 6:30pm, the council’s short term holiday lettings working group will hold a public conference in the Small Hall at Kensington Town Hall about the recent avalanche of holiday short-lets in London, and the effects this has had on neighbourhoods, housing and the hotel industry in Kensington and Chelsea.

Following the government’s lifting of the London ban against short lets in 2015, all the central London boroughs have with growing concern seen neighbourhoods change as thousands of homes have been converted to holiday short lets for tourists. Less than two years after the lifting of the ban, some 60,000 whole homes in London could be booked online by tourists and business visitors, many for only a night, and many thousands had been taken over by companies running them as micro hotels, without having to observe the health and safety regulations governing the hotel industry.

After a conference about the problem at City Hall in February, attended by representatives from most London boroughs, the RBKC councillors decided to set up a working group to look at the effects this has had on neighbourhoods as well as the hotel industry in the borough. This “Short Term Holiday Lettings Working Group”, lead by Malcolm Spalding (Con) and including Judith Blakeman (Lab), Maighread Condon-Simmonds (Con), Sam Mackover (Con) and Monica Press (Lab), has since then discussed the situation with various stakeholders, and at the conference the group will present its interim report.

The latest data, from March 2017, shows that Airbnb and the other online letting agents altogether offer some 8,000 whole homes in RBKC

The conference is expected to finish at 8.30pm. Everyone is welcome.