London is in the middle of a housing crisis. Young people, already experiencing a squeeze on their living standards, must now face that home ownership is beyond the reach of all but those on the highest incomes or with significant financial support from their parents, writes Jules Pipe, Greater London Authority deputy mayor, planning, regeneration and skills.
A generation ago it was people on lower incomes who struggled to get their foot on the housing ladder. Now it is doctors, lawyers and other higher-paid professionals who are forced to look outside the capital for a home for themselves and their families.
A major step forward was taken earlier this year, when mayor Sadiq Khan secured a record £3.15bn from government to deliver as many as 90,000 affordable homes across the capital. Khan recently announced the first allocation of more than half of this money, and more announcements will follow.
If we are to tackle this crisis as a city and deliver the housing Londoners so urgently need, creative solutions need to be found. To reach his long-term strategic target of 50% affordable housing across all new developments in London, the mayor has offered developers a surer, simpler route through the planning process if developers offer at least 35% affordable housing without subsidy.
But in recent years, a worrying trend has emerged with the increasing use of permitted development rights resulting in a loss of occupied office space, which is replaced by homes which fail to meet basic standards, including affordability. The legislation which allows these conversions to take place circumvents much of the planning process which would otherwise ensure the quality of the new homes. Now these rights are to be extended to light industrial landowners, creating further scope for the loss of commercial space and a rise in small, poor quality homes.
London’s light industrial workspaces play a vital role in the city’s economy, providing space for a host of small businesses and start-ups which are an essential part of what keeps London moving. Our research tells us London has lost too much industrial land in recent years and this has particularly affected smaller industrial workspaces: more than 100ha a year since 2010, with at least another 56ha vulnerable to permitted development rights.
The mayor wants property owners and developers to come up with creative proposals which intensify the use of such land while avoiding the loss of valuable workspace. Well-designed schemes that add homes to improved workspace, creating truly mixed-use neighbourhoods, should receive approval through conventional planning routes, rather than delivering a handful of poor conversions that provide little or no affordable housing and destroy local employment.
The new London Plan, which sets out the mayor’s strategic planning guidance for the capital, will cover this issue in more detail. Across London, some boroughs – such as Southwark, Hackney and Hounslow – are to be commended for bringing forward Article 4 directions which remove permitted development rights from developers and wrest back more control over the homes being built. The mayor supports this and is encouraging more boroughs to do the same.
Tackling this problem head-on requires a concerted effort from all parties – otherwise, more and more of the offices and light industrial space of today risk becoming the slums of tomorrow, instead of well-designed neighbourhoods in which we can live and work.
