LREF: Sir Stuart Lipton has called for a housing tsar with powers beyond those of local planning authorities and state landowners to address London’s housing shortfall.
“Let’s go to the root of it, stop blaming developers and people hoarding land and have a free supply of housing, which means having a housing tsar. This would be someone in charge who treats London and the South East differently from the rest of the country, and has a right over planning.
“A housing tsar would have powers from a group of chaps who have a diversity of interests and they would override local authority powers – but in a civilised way,” he said.
Lipton hailed the King’s Cross regeneration an exemplar of housing development, owing to its variety of buildings, including high rises. He compared this with the landscape in neighbouring Islington where residential buildings reached only four floors “because that’s all people would climb in the 19th century”.
Local authorities, he said, should be looking to develop taller buildings along stretches where housing estates stand at four storeys or less.
Lipton offered his thoughts as part of an EG round table held at LREF today that posed the question, “Whose responsibility is housing?”
However, his call for a housing leader with overarching powers was met with cynicism from other leading industry figures at the event who had concerns about the wresting of control from local authorities.
But they agreed that drastic measures were required, particularly to free up brownfield sites.
Large owners of public land such as the NHS and Ministry of Defence should be given a “use it or lose it” ultimatum, they said.
Robert Evans, partner at Argent, said: “There’s plenty of land tied up in quangos, arm’s-length organisations and trusts. The question should be asked, ‘Why are they holding on to it?’ and if there’s no good reason, then take it.”
Participants in the round table included
Andy Algar, Wandsworth borough council
Sara Bailey, Trowers & Hamlins
Robert Evans, Argent
John Gooding, Dolphin Living
Simon Hodson, JLL
Darragh Hurley, Mount Anvil
Sir Stuart Lipton, Lipton Rogers
Andrew Pratt, Patrizia Immobilien
Henry Pryor, buying agent/commentator
Thomas Stevenson, JLL
Look out in next week’s EG for full coverage.
