Kathrin Enenkel sets out three policy priorities for the re-elected Mayor of London to focus on in order to build back better from the pandemic and ensure London excels in the long run.
It has been a difficult 18 months for London. Once the engine that powered the UK economy, London is now a matter of national concern, with a disproportionately high share of furloughed workers and a persistently empty city centre.
Setting out his plans for his second term yesterday, Sadiq Khan said that jobs would be his biggest priority as he looks to lead London’s recovery. Speaking at The Globe Theatre he outlined a £6 million campaign ‘Let’s Do London’ to entice visitors back to the capital.
While plans such as these to counter the economic effects of the pandemic should be rightly the centre of Sadiq Khan’s second term, it is important to acknowledge that many of London’s economic challenges pre-dated the pandemic and, without action, will persist long after it ends.
In his second term Khan must therefore also make progress in tackling these problems: namely traffic congestion, air pollution and the housing crisis.
These are the three priorities Sadiq Khan should focus on over his next term:
The ease with which many people switched to working from home during the pandemic presents a long-term challenge for the tens of thousands of businesses in Zone 1 that cater to office workers – such as shops, pubs and restaurants. Centre for Cities High Street Tracker shows that footfall and spending in central London remain persistently below pre-lockdown levels and, without a big uplift, risks the future viability of the capital’s service economy.
Khan’s immediate attention must therefore be focused on encouraging workers to return to Zone 1 once it is safe for them to do so. One way to do so would be to ensure that the ‘Let’s Do London’ campaign includes plans to entice office workers and domestic tourists back into Zone 1, in partnership with the Government’s Urban Centre Recovery Taskforce. This should aim to boost custom for businesses in hospitality, retail and other local service sectors that depend on office workers.
In the medium to longer term, we expect London to need even more quality city centre office and co-working space to prepare for future economic growth. Providing more office space will create competition in the sector, improve options for businesses and lower rents. Sadiq Khan will therefore need to ensure that the city centre office market remains healthy, and avoid hasty decisions that deplete the amount of office space Zone 1 offers, such as under the City of London’s plans for the future of the Square Mile.
As London grows the housing crisis continues to worsen. Because the next London Plan for the future of the capital’s development is expected to be laid out very soon, Sadiq Khan will need to ensure that the plan is ambitious about improving housing affordability for Londoners and increasing housing supply.
First, the Mayor should conduct a strategic review of green belt land surrounding the city, and release more land around London’s railway stations for new homes. Large parts of the land that makes up the green belt is not suitable for recreation or agriculture, meaning that there are large areas of land close to transport links into the city that could be developed to ease the housing crisis. Centre for Cities has calculated that developing this less-than green land could provide up to 1.1 million new homes at suburban densities with quick connections into London, and leave the vast majority of the Green Belt untouched. You can explore our proposals for this here.
Secondly, Sadiq Khan should ensure that the next London Plan abolishes minimum space standards. Currently, the required minimum size of a new apartment makes them unaffordable for many young renters. This pushes people who would prefer to live alone into overcrowded flat shares, which at the same time reduces the supply of family homes. A boost in the supply of small flats would not only deliver affordable housing to singles, but would also release family homes back onto the market that are currently used for house-sharing.
The third way Sadiq Khan could reduce London’s housing crisis is by making use of planning reforms. Following the Planning White Paper’s proposals to divide land into ‘Growth’, ‘Renewal’, or ‘Protected’ areas would remove much of the planning system’s discretionary decision-making that creates bottlenecks in London’s housing pipeline.
Private car usage in London creates traffic congestion and, as Centre for Cities has previously calculated, is responsible for more than one in 20 deaths in the capital. While big progress has already been made in recent years by introducing three different vehicle charging zones, air pollution in the capital remains dangerously high and should therefore be further curbed by the Mayor in his second term.
To do so, Sadiq Khan should charge all private car traffic in each of the three existing charging zones in Greater London, as is already done via the Ultra-Low Emission Zone. Reducing private vehicle usage through charging then means that the Mayor can further expand and improve the Low Traffic Neighbourhood programme.
Sadiq Khan is facing huge challenges to bring London back to its feet again after the crisis and ensure that London also excels in the long run. Focussing on the city centre economy, air pollution and housing supply should form a central part of his plan to build back better from the pandemic.
Senior Analyst and co-author of Cities Outlook 2020 Kathrin Enenkel on how polluted air is killing thousands of people each year, and particularly affects people living in southern cities.
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