Ealing Council has suggested building 20,000 new homes on the site of RAF Northolt, in a prelude to the upcoming London Plan consultation.
As part of the City for All Londoners document, the council said the working Ministry of Defence site could close, as it “serves no real strategic importance”, and the land developed for housing.
However, this goes against the MoD’s own plans. In 2015’s Strategic Defence Review it set out a 25-year plan to streamline its estate, reducing its size by 30%.
Of 1,300 sites, 300 of which represent 85% of spending, 91 have been earmarked for disposal. But RAF Northolt is not one of them.
The suggestion by Ealing has been met with disdain by neighbouring Hillingdon, inside which authoritiative boundaries the airfield resides.
The leader of Hillingdon Council, Cllr Ray Puddifoot, said “the council would robustly oppose the plan”. He added: “Ealing has not considered traffic movements, the need for infrastructure, basic utlities, and the social infrastructure such as health care provision, school places.”
Though not part of the MoD’s cost-cutting plans, the site would arguably be one of the best suited to capture value for the government.
It is well located in West London, where there is a huge demand for housing. Done properly – with the government effectively acting as developer, obtaining planning and then selling on to a builder – it could capture the uplift in value, which in turn could pay for the infrastructure Hillingdon’s council leader has highlighted.
Crucially, the site sits just outside the Green Belt boundary, which would be one less hurdle for London mayor Sadiq Khan if he did indeed fall in line with Ealing, as opposed to Hillingdon − though the chances of that are probably very slim.
