Call for tax on homes with 'Crossrail windfall'

The Green Party has suggested that London home owners whose property values rise because of the proximity of stations on the high-speed Crossrail should be landed with a windfall tax.

A series of reports from agents have suggested that many parts of London will become more desireable and more expensive as a result of the 70-mile £16 billion project which will open to commuters in 2018.

Now Darren Johnson, a Green member of the London Assembly, says the capital's mayor, Boris Johnson, should levy a windfall tax.

This huge wealth windfall may sound great for anyone who owns property and land near a Crossrail station, but it shows the project will drive up housing costs in relatively affordable parts of London without further action says Johnson.

It's also a private windfall off the back of £15 billion of public investment. We could dampen the rise in house prices and help fund the project by taxing some of that windfall, using a land value tax he says.

So far there has been no response to the idea from Boris Johnson or from agents. Only this week Knight Frank became the latest agency to talk of Crossrail premiums on homes - it says prices within a 10 minute walk of Bond Street station have risen 82 per cent since Crossrail was first announced in 2008, almost twice the 43 per cent rise in the wider area.

The call from the Greens echoes a call 12 years ago by then-deputy prime minister John Prescott who floated the idea of a windfall tax on property values that rose thanks to new underground or rail lines.

Prescott asked property consultant Atis Real Weatheralls to consider the possible tax revenue, but nothing came of the idea at that time.