Building More Homes
The Housing and Land Directorate in the GLA has presented for approval by the Mayor a Building More Homes strategic programme to contribute to the aim that Londoners live in homes they can afford. Details are here.
It includes activity towards meeting the Mayor’s commitment to deliver 40,000 new council homes, delivery of 6,000 ‘rent control’ homes for key workers by 2030 and establishing a new City Hall developer.
Social housing fund
The Government has announced an allocation of £11.7 billion to the GLA over ten years for the delivery of additional social and affordable housing with a minimum of 60% as Social Rent. The programme will support some regeneration schemes that provide a net increase in homes on a site. Five steps to a decade of renewal are explained in the policy paper, including for rents, borrowing costs, building safety, skills and capabilities.
Consultations on a new Decent Homes Standard and on Minimum Energy Efficiency Standards are [more…]
Streetlink for rough sleeping
Further to last week’s update on rough sleeping, there is a website Streetlink that anyone can use to seek help for someone sleeping rough.
APCOA Civil Environmental Enforcement Officers working in partnership with Ealing and Hounslow Councils, will be able to connect people sleeping rough with local support by using an app installed on their handheld devices. Officers will be able to pinpoint the exact location where a person has been seen sleeping rough and provide a brief description to help support teams recognise and assist the [more…]
Reforming the Right to Buy
Following the consultation on this subject, the Government has responded with a set of reforms to be implemented when Parliamentary time allows. The changes include
- extension of Right to Buy eligibility to ten years,
- exempting newly built social and affordable housing from the Right to Buy for 35 years, and
- using more Right to Buy receipts to deliver new social and affordable housing.
Rough sleeping
The Mayor’s Rough Sleeping Plan of Action ensures that any Londoner at risk of homelessness can more easily access help no matter where in London they live, or which service they contact first.
A summary is here of the key initiatives and the dependencies on Government action to support the plan.
Comments from recipients of this update are welcomed on what their own borough does to support homeless people.
Council housing finances
London Councils’ report Crunch Point for London Council Housing Finances warns that boroughs are not in a position to maintain spending in real terms on council housing stock, despite the urgent need for investment in improving housing conditions and building new homes.
Councillor Grace Williams, Executive Member for Housing & Regeneration, said: “A better future for London’s council housing is possible but it requires national policy decisions that give secure and sustainable finances.”
Response to ‘Towards a new London Plan’
We’ve formally responded to the consultation on ‘Towards a new London Plan’, which closed yesterday evening, following on from the presentation by the Deputy Mayor, Jules Pipe, at London Forum’s event on 13th May.
We used some AI tools to help summarise our answers to the long set of questions in a readable format, with the detailed summary now held in our ‘What we’ve said’ archive here.
A shorter summary can be found below:
Section 1: Introduction
London Forum expresses strong reservations about the imposed Government’s [more…]
Spending Review
Matthew Pennycook MP, MHCLG Minister, wrote to social housing providers about £39 billion in the Spring Statement 2025 for a successor to the Affordable Homes Programme over 10 years of starts from 2026-27. It prioritises social rent homes and funds affordable rent and shared ownership.
Sadiq Khan issued a statement regretting the Spending Review had no funding for new London transport infrastructure to support development. He wrote that without it “We will not be able to build the numbers of new affordable homes Londoners need.” and “The way [more…]
S.106 agreements
Simon Ricketts, a partner in TownLegal, has published an article on the time taken to complete agreements on community investment by S.106 before development permission is granted. He points to a Home Builders Federation (HBF) report that the timescale was over 500 days in 2024-25. In that year, 45% of LPAs had agreements finalised that had taken over 1,000 days to complete.
The HBF makes five recommendations for improving the situation.
Simon Ricketts concludes in his blog that it is now substantially quicker to secure a decision by [more…]
Reforming Planning Committees
The Government could transfer decision-making power from Councillors to an un-elected planning officer on what applications are considered at committee. Conservation areas would not be protected. A Technical consultation here is open until 23rd July covering decision delegation, size and composition of planning committees and mandatory training. Two tiers of planning applications are proposed. For Tier A, “minor” developments and those up to 9 dwellings would be delegated to officers but in London that could be increased to 49 dwellings. A current Planning Working Paper [more…]
Didn’t find what you’re looking for? Try a new search:
More social housing
Planning Fees consultation response
The Queen Elizabeth II Garden
Blockers and Approvers: Rates of Delegation and Approval for Planning Applications
The Government recently published Planning Statistics for the year to March 2025. For the 32 London boroughs, the statistics showed some interesting features.
First, they showed that all but three [more…]
Most Popular This Week
-
Planning, Environment and Transport committee meeting
📅 Thu 11th June | 14:00 - 16:00
🚩 Room B1 70 Cowcross St, EC1M 6EJ (map)
-
London Forum open meeting - Enforcement
📅 Mon 29th June | 18:30 - 20:30
🚩 77 Cowcross Street, EC1M 6EL (map)
Speakers and agenda to be confirmed
Please save the date !