Affordable housing up but overall building on downward trend, London Plan review says

News13.02.242.30 PM by James Riding

London has seen an increase in affordable housing delivery but overall housebuilding is on a “downward trend”, according to a review of development in the capital.

Affordable housing starts and completions in London have increased since 2016 (picture: Alamy)

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London has seen an increase in affordable housing delivery but overall housebuilding is on a “downward trend”, according to a review of development in the capital #UKhousing

The report on the London Plan, led by Christopher Katkowski KC, was commissioned in December by housing secretary Michael Gove.

Published on Tuesday 13 February, it concluded that four years into the plan period, net housing additions in London are averaging “consistently” less than 38,000.

The capital had cumulatively fallen short of its housing targets by around 60,000 homes, with only four boroughs meeting or exceeding their 10-year target.

However, within this trend, the authors noted that London has seen “a welcome increase in affordable housing completions”, even if this is “not at a level sufficient to meet affordable housing need”.

However, the report noted that the lag between starts and completions was growing. The authors said this indicated either a “stalling or longer delivery period” for multi-phase regeneration projects, and it demonstrated that affordable housing starts alone are “not a reliable indicator of London’s ability to meet its 10-year housing targets”.

Several schemes recorded as affordable housing starts are being broken into phases and will be built out over multi-year programmes, extending “well beyond” the London Plan’s 10-year target period, they added.

The report also picked up on London’s lack of affordable housing supply, which it said was causing “significant social consequences”. Almost one in 50 Londoners is now homeless (living in temporary accommodation), including one in 23 children. London’s homeless population is equivalent to a city the size of Oxford.

It added that “many London boroughs and developers” pointed to issues arising from the pressure to meet the London Plan’s ambitious affordable housing target of 35%, and even more so on public land, where the target is 50%. The affordable housing target was “leaving them with unviable projects, particularly on smaller sites,” it said.

The report concluded that the London Plan “was, in some ways, acting as a hindrance to London’s housing delivery due to the excessive complexity and policy overload, which in turn undermines the viability of development projects”.

It recommended introducing a “brownfield presumption” in the capital, which could potentially result in between 4,000 and 11,500 additional homes per year. Mr Gove has launched a consultation on the policy, which he is aiming to roll out across 20 cities including London.

A spokesperson for the mayor of London said the review was “nothing more than a stunt” from the government to “distract from their abysmal record of failure”.

London is delivering “twice the level of council homebuilding as the rest of the country combined”, they said, yet the government has “repeatedly ignored industry calls for greater investment in brownfield development”.

They continued: “The mayor simply won’t take lectures from a government that has scrapped housing targets nationally and sent people’s rents and mortgages soaring.”