Minister for Planning Matthew Pennycook MP joined Jules Pipe, London’s Deputy Mayor for Planning, and Tom Copley, London’s Deputy Mayor for Housing, to announce yet more gifts to developers to increase their bank balances
The three people charged with responsibility for responding to the housing affordability crisis in London – and the plight of hundreds of thousands of homeless families and children, as well as the entire planning system – met with thousands of developers and assorted hucksters in the UK’s largest sale of public land in the UK at Leeds earlier this month, known as UKREiiF.
The three politicians were there to explain to their wealthy hosts that the next London Plan will be “streamlined”, jettisoning numerous detailed policies and protections, in an effort to make profitable development easier.
Developers have consistently insisted that the minimum 20% profit which they expect on all projects is jeopardised by requirements to build safe and useful homes. They are particularly annoyed by the Mayor’s attempt to get even a meagre proportion of affordable housing: but they are also keen on removing high standards of quality (such as dual aspect homes, essential in the current heatwave) and post-Grenfell safety requirements.
The Deputy Mayor said that the London Plan would reduce and simplify the rules for developers, making schemes more profitable. The oligarchic housebuilders – who control much identified housing land in London, which they leave empty to keep house prices high – have almost stopped building over the past 18 months, in order to clear the glut of inappropriate yet expensive 1 and 2 bed which they insist on building.
The government blames the Mayor and boroughs for demanding too much from developers and not meeting the government’s imposed target of 88,000 newly built homes a year, a level of build which has never been achieved in the past 100 years.
Jules Pipe explained on behalf of the Mayor that the new London Plan will be “clearer and easier to navigate for the housing industry and councils, stripping away duplication and simplifying policies that have been interpreted oppressively by boroughs”.
Mr Pipe claimed that “building more homes, particularly social and affordable homes, is a top priority for the Mayor. It’s a moral duty for us all to tackle the crisis in
homelessness and make housing more affordable for working Londoners” although he promised no new public funds for the essential social infrastructure of council housing; nor did he propose any pressure on the oligarchic landbanking housebuilders to build out the 500,000 homes for which they already have permission.
At the conference, Deputy Mayor for Housing Copley claimed that new powers secured through the English Devolution and Community Act passed last month will allow City Hall a lower threshold for calling in applications. It will also give the Mayor renewed powers to grant planning permission through Mayoral Development Orders. It is understood that officials have been instructed to scope out major brownfield sites near transport hubs that could benefit from this.
Minister Matthew Pennycook concluded that “the case for fundamentally transforming the housing system that we inherited is unarguable. By any metric, it has been an abject failure” – but then promised more of the same “build, build, build” policies pursued by the previous Conservative government, but with rocket boosters attached.
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