The London Chamber of Commerce and Industry has set out its recommendations to help tackle the housing crisis in London in a new report titled Unlocking London’s housing supply.
They are:
- The government should honour the £1m annual funding commitment to the London Land Commission.
- Governmental responsibility should rest with the minister for housing. The minister should also sit on the commission’s board and have the power to compel government agencies to comply with its’ aims.
- The GLA should be given the task of disposing of government department land assets in Greater London.
- London local authorities should be duty-bound to supply data on surplus land to the commission and identify a single responsible department.
- Local authorities should work with business to help small developers to enter the market to dispose of smaller sites.
- Local authorities working well within this framework should be awarded greater fiscal freedom as an incentive.
The report also highlights the lack of information on how much brownfield land local authorities have available, which could hamper the London Land Commission.
The last count of local authority-owned brownfield land in London was undertaken in 2012 and only 45% of boroughs provided information. This limited sample estimated 3,730 hectares of brownfield land in Greater London.
LCCI looked to update and complete this sample and issued Freedom of Information requests to each London local authority. Of the 32 issued, 15 boroughs either did not respond, or claimed to hold no information on the amount of brownfield land the organisation owned.
LCCI chief executive Colin Stanbridge said: “We are deeply concerned that the local authorities we asked seemed unable to give us accurate – or in some cases any – information on the amount of brownfield land they own, as it is now clear that the commission’s first task will be to extract this information for itself. The commission must be given the requisite powers to compel local authorities to play ball.
“London’s housing crisis cannot be solved borough by borough, we need all parties to come together to work on a pan-London solution.”
