Westminster City Council leader Nickie Aiken has said “speculators” who want to “make a fast buck” by building homes only for oligarchs and overseas investors are not welcome in the borough.
Affordable housing needs to be at the front and centre of the property industry’s thinking, she told an audience at the opening ceremony of the London Real Estate Forum last night.
“The fact that you pay too much for a site does not mean that you will be allowed to short-change our residents,” she said.
Westminster City Council will publish an interim statement on planning policies in the next few days to support housing delivery. The statement will “set out a new approach built on this central presumption that developments should meet our affordable housing policies and how this should be done,” Aiken said. “Our starting point will be that developments should make provision for levels of affordable housing, either on site or close by, that meet our expectations.”
The statement will explain how existing policy will be applied ahead of the new city plan that is to be drawn up by the end of 2018.
Westminster City Council wants 60% of new affordable homes to be “intermediate”, which refers to housing which falls between social housing and open market housing.
Aiken said the industry, as well as politicians and local authorities, needed to respond to the message from voters in the General Election.
“The political weather has changed for everyone, including local authorities and the business community,” she said. “The voters have sent a very clear message – that they are receptive to a fresh vision of opportunity and equality.
“Do not be fooled that this is just a flash in the pan and that things will just settle down and return to normal.”
She added: “I have always believed that real progress cannot be delivered in isolation, so I will work in partnership with those of you who have the best interests of Westminster at heart.”
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