No Khan isn’t Fiddling Housing Completions – So Work Out a deal on where London’s Housing Overspill will go

Standard

Sadiq Khan plans to deal with London’s housing crisis were savaged today by the Government.

Communities Secretary James Brokenshire has threatened to intervene if the Mayor fails to radically improve his London Plan. In a letter, he warned Mr Khan that his target to build new homes is too low.

Mr Brokenshire has also asked Government officials to investigate how more information on newbuilds could be made public, amid claims that City Hall has exaggerated the number of homes being built, an allegation Labour has rejected.

Letter here

Its not possible to fix this in London, which in any event has the best system for housing monitoring in the country, for the very good reason that every new home in London is CIL liable. All you have to do is check TfLs CIL income from here.

I was at a meeting with MHLG official last week when myself and a GLA planner put forward a proposal for a ‘dashboard’ system for completions replacing the 5 different and overlapping notification currently providing the minister and everyone else with instant data on housebuilding.  It could be triggered automatically by a request for an electricity connection for example as it is in many jurisdictions.  Please minister don’t use genuine proposals for more transparency as fake news sticks to be only drawn out in the run up to a mayoral election.

In his hard-hitting letter, Mr Brokenshire, MP for Old Bexley & Sidcup, stressed that London faces the most severe housing pressures in the country.

He said average house prices are now more than 12 times average earnings, compared with an England-wide ratio of less than eight, and “far more than what an individual can typically expect to borrow for a mortgage”.

Mr Brokenshire added: “This is clearly unacceptable. Housing will continue to remain out of reach of millions of hard-working Londoners unless we see a step-change in housing delivery.”

He welcomed the proposed increase in London’s housing target in the Mayor’s draft plan from 42,000 to 65,000 a year. But he said it was just a “helpful first step” and accused Mr Khan of failing to recognise the scale of the challenge. “I am not convinced your assessment of need reflects the full extent of housing need in London to tackle affordability problems,” he said.

Government officials believe the target should be as high as 100,000 a year. The figure cited in revised planning policy guidelines is 72,000.

Mr Brokenshire urged Mr Khan to get on with housing schemes but stressed he should review the London Plan, taking on board the planning changes, “at the earliest opportunity”.

“I remind you that if this is not forthcoming, I have powers to direct the review to ensure London delivers the plan and homes that communities need,” he warned.

City Hall accused the Government of giving London an affordable housing grant of £700 million a year, compared with £1.75 billion in 2009/2010.

A spokesman for the Mayor said: “Rather than criticising the Mayor’s ambitious plan and plucking numbers out of thin air, ministers should meet with him to discuss the powers and investment London urgently needs.

“With Sadiq as Mayor, City Hall started building more genuinely affordable homes — including more social homes — last year than in any since devolution, smashing the record under previous mayors.”

The fall in house prices in London picked up during April to June to the fastest pace for almost a decade.

The drop means that the average London homeowner has seen more than £9,000 wiped from the value of their property over the past year, making it worth £468,845, according to lender Nationwide.

Such a price is still beyond the dreams of many Londoners paying exorbitant rents. Tens of thousands of people are also on councils’ housing waiting lists.

Other issues raised by Mr Brokenshire include fears that the Mayor is banking on many homes being built on small sites by small or medium-sized firms.  It is also claimed the London Plan  lacks detail on achieving housing targets, including how City Hall will work with boroughs.

Mr Brokenshire added: “I would remind you that I have powers to intervene before the Plan is published, by giving a direction to avoid any inconsistencies with current national policy.”

City Hall insists a 100,000 target could be achieved only through loss of greenbelt and metropolitan open land, and that its plans, which include building at greater density on brownfield sites, protect the overall level of “green cover”, including green roofs, when small sites are developed.

What is the point of setting national OAN targets if the government immeadiately applies tipex to them without any evidence. The National OAN method already assumes an additional 10,000 people will move from the North of England than the SHMa predicts to move into jobs that no employment forecast has predicted, because that what its excel global fudge factor.

London has had a long term average of 20,000 a year completions, with heroic efforts that might nudge up to 30,000 or so, more in boom years (now passed).  No way will it triple as the Mayor proposes or increase five fold as Brokenshire proposes.  This is unicorn planning.  Waving around fantastical and undeliverable targets.

If there wasnt a mayoral election pending the two should sit down and discuss what a deliverable London target per annum would be, some more suburban small sites but no so high to make the suburbs sequel, or more than the 2% or so loss of Green Belt we see in the rest of the South East, some more housing estate redevelopment but no so much as to make Labour Boroughs squeal.  Somewhere around 35,000 an annum.  Then the Minister should write to every authority with 100km of London asking then to take the overspill of 35,000 houses a year, thats 1 million to 2050.  Not impossible that 4 Milton Keynes sized developments, readers of the blog will know of good locations where they can go.

So rather than a rational plan for the housing crisis we get mudslinging in the maytoral election run up where the minister is complaining the targets are too low and the conservative mayoral candidate are complaining the targets are too high.  What is they won.  Here we go again.  You couldnt make it up.

Brokenshire’s Bizarre Attack on ‘Garden Grabbing’ Khan

Inside Housing

Housing secretary James Brokenshire has attacked Sadiq Khan’s London Plan for allowing building on people’s gardens.

In a letter to the mayor, he threatened to use his powers to intervene if the plan – the mayor’s spatial development strategy for the capital – is not changed to reflect the recently published National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF).

As well as instructing Mr Khan to remove his policy allowing development on residential gardens, he criticised “the detail and complexity” of the policies, saying they “have the potential to limit accessibility to the planning system and development”.

 

The new NPPF has removed the restriction on garden development being counted as windfall.

Whilst on garden it says.  Para 71. (para 70 old version).

‘Plans should consider the case for policies to resist innappropriate development of residential gardens, for example where development would cause harm to the local area’.

In other words entirely optional.

The London Plan no longer contains a policy restricting garden development.  As it is perfectly allowed to do under the NPPF.

The issue is policy H2 which provides a presumption in favour of development

Including ‘infill development within the curtilage of a house’ however in line with the NPPF there is a harm clause ‘unless it can be demonstrated that the development would give rise to an unacceptable level of harm to residential privacy, designated heritage assets, biodiversity or a safeguarded land use that outweighs the benefits of additional housing provision.’

The type of harm is not defined in the NPPF.

This is a cheap point scoring exercise prompted by lobbying from Mayoral candidates.

Fair dos to the Minister though for calling out the London Plan for ‘“stray[ing] considerably beyond providing a strategic framework” – it has certainly grown to become a monster and could be reduced to a couple of dozen policies over 100 pages, and that it does not provide enough information about how its increased housing targets will be delivered.  Of course it targets are deliverable, especially with ruling out Green Belt development and no deal to deliver overspill.