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Increasing Stamp Duty was put in place to stop the over heating housing market, so was removal of the mortgage interest relief for landlords. From the information I'm getting it looks like both of those measures are having the desired effect.
In Hammersmith & Fulham they are using section 106 money from developers to fund affordable housing rather than force them to include it in the development. They restructured a lot of s106 deals which would have improved local facilities (like park pathways) to funnel money into housing. It's not that popular with people who already live here.
Airhead-
It wasn't, actually though. It was to keep the aspirational middle class in their place and to push property investment away from normal(ish) people and back towards the mega rich and funds. The initial plan was not to charge the extra stamp duty to those that own over 15 properties, it was only amended after pressure from Labour in the Lords...
Only about 12% of British properties are owned by private landlords (more in LDN I'm sure) so increasing tax on that small proportion of buyers won't cool things on its own, what we've seen is the cumulative effect of that tax rise, a natural slowing that happens after a period of steep growth and some referendum thing or other that happened a few months back.
Hefty
Cheers, Oliver. Was just curious if the UK would ever take a position which risked stalling housing prices. It seems the country is much more interested in doing the opposite (Help to Buy ISAs, for example).