If you speak to any developer in London, they will say that one of their main frustrations is the length of time it takes to get major schemes off the ground.
It takes on average one year for planning permission to be granted and then an extra two years before all the consents and legal agreements are in place. That is a full three years before the bulldozers move in. At a time when London needs almost 50,000 new homes every year, that is simply not good enough.
That is why at City Hall we welcome the government’s post-Budget productivity plan: Fixing the Foundations, which will speed up our overly bureaucratic planning system by cutting through unnecessary red tape and devolving more powers to the mayor.
None of the new homes built in London are actually constructed by the mayor so his power is limited, but we are heading in the right direction. The powers we do have are being applied at full speed, resulting in record-breaking affordable housing delivery. In 2014-15, there were 17,914 affordable completions, the equivalent of a new affordable home every 30 minutes.
We are already well ahead of the game when it comes to developing our brownfield land. We now have 38 opportunity areas designated across the capital with capacity for 300,000 homes and we are increasing the number of housing zones to at least 30, the first 20 delivering more than 50,000 new homes will be designated this summer. In addition, 99% of developable land held in mayoral hands has already been released for development, in line with the mayor’s 100% target by the end of his term in 2016. Land already released by the mayor includes east London’s Royal Docks, the Beam Park site in Rainham, and the former Cane Hill Hospital site in Croydon.
We have also recently held the first meeting of the London Land Commission, marking the first ever co-ordinated effort between City Hall, government and the boroughs to free up surplus public land in London to build homes.
New powers devolved to City Hall will allow the mayor to work with our 32 local authorities to get even more homes built. All applications that are for more than 50 units will now need final sign-off by the mayor, instead of the previous threshold of 150 units. We believe that will lead to an extra 100 applications a year falling onto the mayor’s desk, giving him greater clout to push through schemes that would otherwise be in danger of stalling.
The mayor will also have devolved powers over sight lines and the safeguarding of wharves and it is also proposed to allow Londoners to build upward extensions on their homes without prior approvals, unless neighbours object to their borough authorities. This could lead to thousands of much-needed additional rooms constructed across the city.
The productivity plan will also ensure that under-performing councils start to pull their weight and make land available for housing through their local plans. Currently in London, there are three local authorities that still do not have local plans which cover the future development of the area. That is simply not good enough.
Under the new guidelines, the government could potentially intervene to ensure that councils put these crucial plans in place and will also publish league tables to publicly name and shame local authorities that should do better. There will also be penalties for boroughs that fail to handle the majority of applications on time and proposals that will speed up the often laborious Section 106 negotiations.
Speeding up planning is certainly one side of the equation, but it is also worth pointing out that there are already about 260,000 planning approvals in London in the pipeline, and we are working hard to get these built out as soon as possible.
There is no doubt that these changes to the planning system will speed up the delivery of new homes. In London, our population is heading towards the 9m mark and by 2030, we will have hit 10m. These changes are an important part of the jigsaw to ensuring we have the homes we need to remain the best big city in the world.
Sir Edward Lister, chief of staff and deputy mayor of London for planning
