Over the past 100 days I have been busy meeting people across London to set out the mayor’s plans for building new and affordable homes for Londoners. It has been great to speak with councils of all political hues, housing associations, developers, investors, businesses, and Londoners themselves – and very encouraging to find that while there are no illusions about the scale of the challenge we face, there is a strong consensus behind what we need to do to fix London’s housing crisis.
Across the board, there is clear agreement on the scale of the crisis and that London needs more homes across a range of tenures and levels of affordability to remain a mixed city and an economic success. Organisations across London are coming together to make this case: last month, for instance, I spoke at the launch of The Business Case for Affordable Housing, a report that, having been commissioned jointly by Peabody and the CBI, underscores the opportunity for a common agenda in London when it comes to our housing needs.
What is also accepted is that turning around the housing crisis will take time.
People in London know we need to act, they know we need to be ambitious, and they know we need to be honest that the problems are not going to be fixed overnight. It’s going to be a marathon, not a sprint.
Since Sadiq Khan was elected we have made a start on this marathon. We have started making the case for substantial investment in London’s housing, which is crucial in getting to grips with the legacy we inherited whereby last year Boris Johnson funded fewer affordable homes than in any year since records began 25 years ago.
The mayor has been clear that London needs substantial investment in affordable homes to rent and buy; investment that will help housing associations raise their levels of new supply. We know too that we need to attract private sources of finance, and so we have been working with the build-to-rent sector, for instance, to develop a planning approach that supports investment in the opportunities it offers.
We know we need to bring forward more land for development, so we are working with Transport for London to bring forward more of its surplus land from the autumn as opportunities for new housing. At the same time, we have begun looking more widely at public land in the capital – aiming to move beyond the London Land Commission’s audit of public land and secure a deliverable programme of sites for homebuilding.
One thing is clear following the EU referendum result: the development industry wants and needs as much certainty as possible in the planning system, including over what we mean by genuinely affordable housing and how we get to a strategic long-term target of 50%.
Sadiq inherited a legacy of just 13% affordable housing in planning permissions given last year, so we know we need to be ambitious and practical to raise this. That is why we are spending the summer continuing work on supplementary planning guidance that will offer clarity and certainty around viability assessments – a move we hope will improve the level of affordable housing and speed up development.
At City Hall, we want to be more hands-on with homebuilding in the capital and so we are pressing ahead with setting up our “Homes for Londoners” team, which will report directly to the mayor. Homes for Londoners will start work this autumn and we want it to bring together City Hall’s housing, land, planning and development teams, and strengthen capacity and skills where needed.
It has been a busy 100 days, setting in motion all of Sadiq’s plans to get to grips with the housing crisis – from our work to develop a common standard for estate regeneration, to our work to set up a new taskforce to get rough sleeping in the capital back under control. I am sure we will stay busy as we work flat out to build the affordable homes to buy and rent.
We know that taking on this challenge depends on us working closely with everyone who has a stake in building new homes for Londoners – and that is why it has been so important for us to meet as many people as possible in the first 100 days and build support for our approach.
Turning around the housing crisis won’t happen overnight, but we will work every day with you to build the homes that Londoners need.
SEE ALSO:
• Could TfL derail Khan’s 50% affordable housing plans
• Briefing: 100 days of Khan – the story so far
