Sadiq Khan’s London plan is not nearly ambitious enough
London isn’t building and the draft London Plan put forward by the Mayor last week will do very little to change that, says Sam Dumitriu
It is unwise to take on additional responsibilities when you are failing to fulfill those you already have. As Mayor of London, one of the soon-to-be Lord Khan of Tooting’s biggest responsibilities is to get London building. Well, London isn’t building. And the draft London Plan put forward last week will do little to change that.
London’s housing is Britain’s least affordable. Rent on a one-bed in the capital will set you back more than rent on a three-bed in any other region of the country. The ONS classifies areas with house prices five times higher than incomes as “severely unaffordable”. London’s prices are ten times incomes, reaching 20 times in some boroughs.
This is why successive governments have committed to raising London’s overall housing target. While Labour’s annual 88,000 home target is fewer than the 100,000 that the Conservatives demanded, it still represented a massive increase against current building rates. London last built over 60,000 homes in the 1930s. Hitting the 88,000 target would require build-rates to effectively treble from their current level.
No easy task, but achievable with the right policies. Tokyo alone starts over 140,000 homes a year, more than the whole of England. After Auckland allowed mid-rise development across three-quarters of the city in 2016, homebuilding roughly doubled citywide. Closer to home, Manchester’s skyline has changed beyond recognition with its city-centre population climbing from around 10,000 to nearly 100,000 in 15 years, on the back of some 25,000 new homes.
Cities like Tokyo, Auckland, and Manchester show it can be done, but the draft London plan doesn’t even try. In fact, under Khan’s draft, London is planning to miss its target by over 30,000 homes per year.
Targets aren’t everything. London has consistently built fewer homes than targeted in past London Plans. So, even if the headline target has barely budged, will the policies in the new plan bring London closer to meeting it?
Maybe. There are some welcome moves.
There are 95 within the GLA boundary. If all London’s golf courses were a borough, they would be its 15th largest
London may lack homes, but there’s no shortage of golf courses. There are 95 within the GLA boundary. If all London’s golf courses were a borough, they would be its 15th largest. Rules designed to protect parks and open green spaces from development have been revised to exclude golf courses in exceptional circumstances. Likewise, Khan – traditionally, a strong defender of the Green Belt – is planning to open up some well-connected Green Belt land for development.
It’s not just green spaces where restrictions hold back development. At Old Oak Common, the Mayor’s Strategic Industrial Location (SIL) policy has limited the number of homes that can be built around the new HS2 station. Under current policy, the station is expected to unlock only around 8,000 homes. Britain Remade estimates that more than 100,000 could be built if the effective ban on housing on SIL land were lifted. To his credit, Khan’s proposed changes to the draft London Plan begin to relax these restrictions, although only modestly.
These moves are welcome, but insufficient: Green Belt changes will net only 50,000 homes over the next decade, and less than five per cent of London’s SIL will be released.
Potentially, the most radical policy is on density. It pushes boroughs to set reasonably high minimum densities with smaller projects automatically deemed “acceptable in principle” provided they’re compliant with a design code. It’s a nudge in the right direction, but far from the predictable rules-based system that got Auckland building.
The big problem isn’t what’s new, but what’s still there. There’s next-to-nothing to lift the massive burdens on development. Development might be possible in more places in theory, but ultra-high affordable housing mandates and ever-growing assessment burdens still bite.
As Housing Secretary, Michael Gove assembled a taskforce to rewrite the London Plan, but Labour dropped these plans upon taking power. If Burnham wants to prove his commitment to ‘good growth’ and business, he should tell Lord Khan: if you won’t plan for London to meet its housing target, I will.
Sam Dumitriu is head of policy at Britain Remade