February 2018
Below are extracts from the LGBC response to the Mayor of London regarding the draft London Plan. The full response has been published on our website (See Reports on the Information page)
The LGBC has welcomed the broad thrust of the draft London Plan 2019-2041, particularly the strong commitment to protection of the Green Belt. We have told the Mayor that we welcome the unequivocal statement that
“The Plan aims to accommodate all of London’s growth within its boundaries without intruding on its Green Belt or other protected open spaces”, and the pledges to
“protect London’s open spaces, including the Green Belt, Metropolitan Open Land, designated nature conservation sites and local spaces … promote the creation of new green infrastructure and urban greening … (and) work with boroughs and other strategic partners to enhance access to the Green Belt and to improve the quality of these areas in ways that are appropriate within the Green Belt.”
We are also pleased to see the Plan’s commitment to create “places of higher density in appropriate locations to get more out of limited land, encouraging a mix of land uses, and co-locating different uses to provide communities with a wide range of services and amenities.” We do, however, have some concerns, especially about the housing numbers set out in the Plan.
But we are concerned that the new annual housebuilding target of 65,000 new homes is 33% higher than the current target of 49,000 set out in the Further Alterations to the London Plan (FALP) in 2015. Whilst accepting that this is at the lower end of the range of housing targets considered we are unconvinced that even this target is achievable in view of the increasing gap between the number of planning permissions already granted and actual building starts.
There has been a massive increase in recent years in the amount of land on which developers have permission but the rate at which they have been building has not kept pace with the rate at which they have been acquiring sites. Nationally, the ‘landbank’ of the Top 10 Developers is estimated to be some three times larger than the annual build rate. So, is 65,000 homes a year achievable, and, if it is not, should not a more realistic figure be put forward?