At the southern start of the Northern Line you will find Morden. It is a place fizzing with potential. It, along with London’s other 200 town centres, is exactly the sort of place that could be reconfigured to see more quality homes built to help the capital double its housebuilding.
London’s growth has long been envisaged within its existing footprint. Even if it were not, demand would dictate that more homes would need to be built within the capital. However, there have only been four boroughs with more than 1,000 residential starts in each of the past three years. Just four out of 32 boroughs, excluding the City. So, if even in this relatively buoyant market more homes aren’t being built in accessible places like Morden, when will they?
The good news for Morden is the local authority wants growth. Merton council is bidding for the area to be one of London’s 20 housing zones, with an ambitious masterplan to redesign the town centre, create a high street that is better for pedestrians, enhance the retail and link the town more strongly to a beautiful National Trust park nearby. It will soon require a development partner for around 1,000 homes.
Morden is not just helped by the finance, focus and fast-track planning that being a housing zone would bring. It has two major landowners in the public sector, Merton council and Transport for London, and with the right plan this can make a real difference.
Part of the answer to unlocking London’s brownfield opportunities is getting public land developed. This requires, in some cases, a complete change in ethos among those public bodies, from the NHS to the MoD, which own land for operational rather than regeneration purposes.
This is part of the task of the new London Land Commission – a partnership between the Greater London Authority and government to co-ordinate land activities in London.
There has been a lot of progress on public land over the past decade. Over 94% of the GLA’s land is now either being developed or marketed, close to fulfilling the mayor’s commitment to have an exit on all City Hall sites in this mayoral term. This will see 40,000 new homes built, including regeneration on Greenwich Peninsula and Barking Riverside, as well as four hospital redevelopments. The 72-acre Beam Park near Dagenham is the latest site to be released.
Opportunities for public land remain vast. This means three priorities for the work of the London Land Commission.
Firstly, establishing who owns what. There needs to be a comprehensive, transparent Domesday Book for London public land. There are some public records already. Every site owned by the GLA Group can be found on the GLA website through an interactive map. But other records are poor.
Determining which assets to regenerate on that list, with more efficient, collaborative procurement, is also essential. The GLA has a framework panel of developers already used by half of London boroughs. These frameworks substantially reduce procurement timescales and costs, with a developer having been selected on a major 54-acre site in only three months. They allow for partnering opportunities and sensible financial deals, improving the viability and speed of development, and often give a better long-term return.
Finally, we should not just consider assets which are declared surplus, but look at all land owned by the public sector. What exists along the proposed Crossrail 2 route, or suburban rail links? These assets could be reconfigured, integrated or, sometimes, relocated so that we can optimise the use of land where we want to build homes. This raises the question about what additional powers could be put on the statute to help unlock London’s lost land; for example, strengthening and expediting compulsory purchase orders.
London’s land market demands more focus. Ensuring more developable land comes to market is not the only thing which needs to happen to meet our housebuilding ambitions. But a Land Commission, with teeth, will help to achieve it.
Richard Blakeway is deputy London mayor for housing, land and property
