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Reforming Licensing
The government invites views and evidence here UNTIL NOON ON 6TH NOVEMBER 2025 to inform the development of a modern, proportionate and enabling licensing system for alcohol sales. It is to build on the Licensing Taskforce recommendations and the government’s response and to support the Government’s commitment to reduce regulatory burdens by 25% by the end of this Parliament. Responses should be made online.
Chief Planner’s update
On 7th October Joanna Averley, the MHCLG Chief Planner issued an update letter to planners in local authorities on 2025 Housing Design Awards, New Towns (two in London), consultation on infrastructure planning reforms and flood risk assessment. MHCLG has published its response to the compulsory purchase consultation.
London Forum members should consider the content of the letter and review implications with their Council.
Haringey Social Work
The Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman (LGO) reported 1,100 unread emails in Haringey Council’s social work inbox “including 500 police reports”.
Lucia das Neves, the council’s health, social care and wellbeing Cabinet Member said: “We recognise the seriousness of the findings and fully accept that mistakes were made, for which we apologise.”
The death of Baby P in 2007 saw the council heavily criticised [more…]
Construction Adviser appointed
A new interim Chief Construction Adviser, Thouria Istephan, was appointed by the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government on 30th September 2025.
MHCLG states that “Thouria will play a central role helping to shape the future of the built environment sector, ensuring that safety, delivery and accountability are central to decision-making, with residents’ voices at heart.”
Details are here.
Street crime
A Policy Exchange report covered street crime in London and made seventeen recommendations.
Knife crime in London increased by 58.5% between 2021 and 2024 and only 1 in 20 robberies and 1 in 170 “theft person” crimes in the capital were solved last year;
60% of the knife crimes were robberies with over 81,000 mobile phones stolen;
20 streets near Oxford Circus and Regent Street had more knife crime than 15% of [more…]
Consultation for next London Plan
The GLA has published an ‘Easy Read’ version here of an earlier ‘Towards a New London Plan‘. It explains the need to deliver more homes and related problems. The consultation seeks views on that and various options for land use, jobs, environment and cultural facilities. London Forum’s members should consider responding by the closing date of 2nd November 2025 to influence the content of the draft replacement London Plan due in [more…]
Housing delivery – THF
The Housing Forum (THF) has published useful reports. One assessed Progress at July 2025 towards 1.5 m new homes target. Another in September 2025 is Barriers to housing delivery. It identifies challenges bringing housing delivery almost to a halt and offers solutions to financial constraints, planning complexities, regulatory pressures, workforce capacity and efficiency of working practices. The Government, the next London Plan and London’s local authorities will need policies [more…]
RPs and affordable homes
The Home Builders Federation posted on LinkedIn they had investigated the effects of lack of bids from Registered Providers (RPs) on housing delivery nationally and found :-
An estimated 900 completed Section 106 Affordable Housing units remain empty due to the absence of a contract with a Registered Provider.
Around 8,500 Section 106 Affordable Homes either under construction or due to commence construction within the next 12 months are not currently contracted.
More than [more…]
LPAs and Biodiversity
The “Biodiversity Evidence – Better Outcomes from Planning” project of ‘Greenspace Information for Greater London’ aims to understand the challenges, limitations and needs of Local Planning Authorities (LPAs) in London with regards to taking account of biodiversity early on in the planning process, and to provide resources to help them overcome some of these issues.
Their report can be downloaded from here.
High quality Social Housing
The Policy Exchange has a 35-Point Blueprint for a New Generation of Superlative British Social Housing. It calls for a new generation of exemplary council housing that will restore the traditional, humanist social and design ideals that marked the early iterations of English public housing. The report argues that by so doing, not only will we help solve the affordability riddle that lies at the heart of the housing crisis, but [more…]
Access to Green Space
CPRE (London) will run a live-stream event on Thursday 25th September 2025 on Inequality in Access to Green Space in London. Tickets are free.
Economic growth
The Resolution Foundation claims that growth would make all the Government’s challenges easier to solve – but it is not straining every sinew to achieve it.