Cross-party group of London council leaders call for more investment in social housing

“Central government should work with local authorities to deliver a renaissance in council housebuilding. 

“[It] should increase capital investment in social housing, and give local government greater flexibility in how funding can be used,” the report said. 

The group said that while planning reform is “vital”, the government “will not achieve [its] target for new homes or address the escalating housing crisis unless it delivers a renaissance in council housebuilding”.

The new Labour government has committed to deliver 1.5 million homes during this parliament. 

One of key announcements in the King’s Speech was planning reform through a new Planning and Infrastructure Bill aimed at “unlocking more housing”. 

A briefing document published after the speech said the proposed legislation will “speed up and streamline the planning process to build more homes of all tenures and accelerate the delivery of major infrastructure projects”.

Earlier this month, new chancellor Rachel Reeves announced plans to reintroduce housing targets and said it will support local authorities with appointing 300 additional planning officers across the country.

Central London Forward, a sub-regional partnership of the 12 central London local authorities, is calling on the government to ensure there is “sufficient funding” for planning teams and said the allocated funding of £20m for planning officers is not enough. 

According to the group’s report, public investment in planning has fallen by £230m in real terms since 2010 as councils saw huge budget cuts, and pay for planners has fallen by a third. 

It said that this has led to difficulties in recruiting and retaining planners and escalating delays in the system. 

“Labour has committed only to £20m of additional funding. This would enable the recruitment of 300 planners, fewer than one per planning authority. 

“Government should seek to restore funding for planning authorities to 2010 levels, and give more flexibility on fees,” the group said. 

Central London Forward is also calling on the government to “empower” local authorities to assemble land because “building homes in urban areas often requires land assembly which can be time-consuming and expensive”. 

The government should give councils the power to undertake compulsory purchase of land without having to pay ‘hope value’, the group said, and without the permission from the housing secretary.

“Government should enable boroughs to borrow to fund land assembly,” it said. 

The group of councils has also asked for help to unblock stalled developments as “developers often do not build-out after receiving planning permission”. 

“While London boroughs have consented 780,000 homes in the last decade, just 349,000 have been built. 

“Councils should be able to charge a levy on developers who do not build out, and they should also be given ‘use it or lose it’ powers to revoke planning permission,” it said. 

To reach the government’s housebuilding target, the report called for a “renaissance of council housebuilding”.

The group said this will require a “major increase” in government funding for social housing and that building 90,000 council homes would support 140,000 jobs, boost the economy by £51bn and deliver a return to the taxpayer of £12bn over a 30-year period.

Kieron Williams, chair of Central London Forward and leader of Southwark Council, said: “The planning reforms we have set out would help us build more homes and deliver a much-needed boost to UK growth.

“But while planning reform is necessary, it alone will not be sufficient. We also need to see a renaissance of council housebuilding if we are to deliver on the government’s ambitious target, and provide the homes we so desperately need.”

A spokesperson for the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government said that as government has further announcements to make in this area in due course, it will not comment on the report at this time. 

Earlier this month, a group of the largest local authority landlords in England set out a plan to “secure the future of council housing” in an interim report, and called for a one-off £644m “rescue injection”.