How to make the new London Plan a success
The proposed London Plan could deliver the biggest improvement to housing in the capital for almost a century – if the Mayor makes the most of it.
The proposed London Plan could deliver the biggest improvement to housing in the capital for almost a century – if the Mayor makes the most of it.
Earlier this month, the Mayor of London launched the consultation for the new London Plan. With a stretching new target of 88,000 new homes a year, what does it mean for the capital?
The focus of the next London Plan will be housebuilding and economic growth space. This is a positive response to London’s most important policy issue – the housing crisis and the damage it is doing to the economy of the capital and the country.
The new focus is emphasised with a commitment not to increase the planning system’s burdens on development. This provides a good framework to think about every policy in the new plan – the benefits and the costs that each new idea will introduce for housebuilding in the capital should be understood before a decision is made.
To achieve its overarching goal, the London Plan will need to deliver a big increase in private housebuilding. The London Plan’s own data, shown in Figure 1, shows the capital’s peak housebuilding level in the 1934 was driven primarily by private housebuilding, which provided 73,000 out of almost 81,000 houses. This was prior to the creation of the modern discretionary planning system with the Town and Country Planning Act 1947.
Source: Greater London Authority; Centre for Cities: Restarting Housebuilding I
Affordable housing requirements depend on subsidies outside the control of the London Plan. That both housing associations and councils are struggling with their balance sheets to take on more new homes suggests that affordable housing targets – which are delivered by imposing requirements on private development – need to be realistic if they are not to impede new supply.
The review of the green belt is the biggest change proposed in the new London Plan. After 70 years of urban containment, the Mayor of London has decided to let London grow again.
As the London Plan sets out, it is currently impossible for the capital to meet its new housebuilding targets on brownfield sites alone. Centre for Cities data shows that 1.4 million new homes could be built around railway and tube stations serving London, but 88 per cent of these new homes are currently blocked solely due to green belt.
London’s review of the green belt is an important complement to national policy on ‘grey belt’. The grey belt is starting to have a substantial impact on development nationally but doesn’t apply to green belt land which still blocks the growth of big cities. London’s strategic review of green belt land would address this remaining blocker.
The ‘brownfield first’ principle is squared with release of the green belt by commitments to enhance nature and access to green space. More important for supporting brownfield regeneration is likely to be industrial land – releasing land in the green belt around motorway junctions and elsewhere for employment and logistics uses will enable industrial land within the capital’s built up areas to be redeveloped for new housing without damaging the capital’s economy.
The Central Activities Zone (CAZ) is singled out for commercial activities and its role as a high-value employment centre for the capital and the wider country. The consultation signals it may be strengthened and redefined in response to changing commuter behaviours.
To help support the CAZ’s unique economic role, the Mayor will need to do two things that are hinted at in the consultation. First, remove a number of the most restrictive viewing corridors across central London, including those currently blocking development around new Elizabeth Line stations. Second, accept that for the CAZ to continue to support jobs across the entire city, some residential neighbourhoods in any expanded CAZ will need to shift towards commercial uses.
Centre for Cities recently identified five major barriers to urban housebuilding in our recent paper on ‘anti-supply measures’. The new London Plan touches on two of these – overheating regulations and space standards.
The Mayor signals an openness to replace the current London Plan’s requirements on overheating with the national Building Regulations’ Document O. This would be a welcome step, but these national regulations themselves also need change. Air conditioning is by far the cheapest way to make new, insulated flats safe from dangerous levels of heat, and in an increasingly low-carbon and solar-driven grid, will release few emissions.
The new London Plan also signals it will maintain the current space standards for one-bed flats of 37m2. This would be a missed opportunity – as the GLA’s own data shows, the average private renter in London can only afford 25m2, the space standards mean that the new flats in London that are built are unaffordable to single households.
Reducing the standard to either 25m2 (the average space for renters) or 18m2 (the co-living space standard), would not just mean more flats could be built in each development. By allowing single households’ purchasing power to support new supply, they could restore confidence to London’s housebuilding sector – effectively creating a demand-side policy that would decrease house prices.
Underpinning all of this will be the relationship between the London Plan and the local plans of London Boroughs. For new development to take place, sites must be allocated by the latter, and all the Mayor can do is set policy that is as permissive as possible for decisions that can end up on his desk. If councils do not want to play ball – including on some of the topics set out in this blog – then the Mayor will need to pick a fight to make progress.
This is why planning should be done at the city-region scale, rather than borough-by-borough. The London Plan can unlock the political benefits of improving affordability across the capital because it has scale. Although some boroughs have particularly pro-supply policies, others are intransigently opposed to development, as they feel the costs of local housebuilding and only part of the city-wide benefits of lower housing costs.
The new London Plan contains real promise. If the Mayor follows through on his framework and removes many barriers to new development, he could do more for London housing affordability than anybody else since the Second World War.
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