Last week, on what looked like a very sunny day in Greenwich another London Plan consultation was launched. The event heavily populated with the great and good had a smattering of developers present to make up the numbers.
The first thing to say is what has been released is not a draft version but a debating document. It will have no material weight. The sentiment may carry through though.
In big picture terms, the Plan will sign up to 88,000 new homes a year. This is ambitious and mission critical if the Government is going to achieve its national 1.5 million homes target.
Over the weekend, the Housing Minister had reportedly likened the delivery trajectory to a hockey stick. A dip followed by a big rise – 374,000 net dwellings by 2027 to play catch up. If London can perform, it makes up near enough a quarter of this quota. If London doesn’t perform, the Government really is not going to succeed.
So is the London Mayor serious about housing? The document appears to make some of the right noises.
More land will be pulled out of the Green Belt to facilitate development. That could be politically painful. However, there is reference to golf courses being a prime target and one would imagine the golfing community is not the Mayor’s core vote.
There is also talk of a streamlined fast track and LPA’s falling into line with the current Plan’s approach. Many have taken more prescriptive and more exacting approaches.
There is reference to the Mayor’s threshold approach on affordable housing. Currently 35% is unobtainable in the real world of development viability. The recent Stag Brewery decision should have given the Mayor’s team pause for thought.
If the Mayor is to persist with a threshold which is unachievable then he must be far less prescriptive about the approach taken on viability and late stage reviews. Otherwise, I predict investment and developer brain power will continue to flow to other jurisdictions.
Another positive is the reference to operational living uses such as build to rent, student and co-living. These tenures will dominate future development in housing across the Capital and they should be welcomed.
Unless there is genuine demand side subsidy, housing for sale will stay out of the reach for the mainstream for many years to come and there is nothing the London Plan can do other than to recognize the reality. More people in our cities will rent.
It’s too early to sign off the report card. There is much detail to work through over the coming months. My warning to the policy makers is green belt settlements are big prizes with long timelines. London needs new homes now. So focusing on the many stuck consents is where the real prize money sits.
