We’ve responded to the December 2025 NPPF consultation, which closed on 12th March 2026. This substantial piece of work, contributed to by many subject matter experts, is posted in the ‘what we’ve said‘ archive as usual, and directly linked below for your convenience.  It is now fully indexed for searching too.

We are critical of some of the new decision making policies.

London Forum response to NPPF consultation December 2025

Our President, Ben Derbyshire, provides his Insights into our recent Densifying the Suburbs event.

I welcomed the invitation to speak at an open meeting of the Forum, ‘Densifying the Suburbs’ alongside Professor Tony Travers of UCL and local planners, Paul Lewin and Justin Carr from Waltham Forest and Brent councils respectively.  My challenge – most people who have time to participate in their local civic societies will already be well housed, so what, I asked, should be our collective response to fellow citizens who are not?

I talked the sell-out audience through the full range of possibilities for housing development in the face of the collapse of home-building in London.  As ever, architects are out there flying kites for some radical alternatives.

100 mile city – Peter Barber

Peter Barber, who’s oeuvre as a whole is an illuminating exploration of tight-knit ingenuity, proposes the ‘100 Mile City’ – a belt of dense low-rise housing marking a permanent limit of the city’s encroachment into the countryside.  Russell Curtis has researched the opportunity of small sites, corner sites and development on failing golf courses which together could double the capacity assumed by the current London Plan.  My own practice’s Supurbia project, of which I have written previously in these pages, and which almost found its way onto the statute book as ‘Street Votes’ under the last government, suggests we could deliver a million new homes by doubling the density of just 10% of outer boroughs.

Turning from theoretical possibilities to reality, I presented a range projects of the kind we can expect to see much more of as the plan to unlock the target 880,000 homes per year in London grinds into gear.  Can the civic society movement rise to the occasion and become champions of a consensus over what’s right?

All the developments I illustrated were, in my view, good in their own way – a corner site replacing one home with ten near a station, a handsome mansion block scheme on a station car park, a brownfield back-land development with limited access but next to a lovely local park, a drill hall redeveloped as a community centre, public space and housing for refugees.  At increased scale, I presented modular prefabricated homes for rent in re-landscaped canal-side setting, and then some very tall buildings amongst the capital’s designated ‘opportunity areas’, including the new breed of co-living development where a very small rental flat is complimented by lavish shared facilities.

As the catalogue of opportunities unfolded, and in the discussion that followed, it became clear that the smaller interventions for London’s new homes, fitted in amongst existing communities, generate the highest ratio of resistance.  Very big schemes, often in brownfield locations or previously industrial areas are less contested by local people.  Reasons for objections are sometimes at a micro level, such as fear of overlooking, sometimes about concerns over pressure on infrastructure. One contribution from the floor was to suggest we were all wasting our time as collapsing immigration is easing pressure on housing and in any case there’s no money to build with!

But in the end, the occasion also proved hopeful.  A burst of spontaneous applause greeted my suggestion that whilst we hold out for consistent quality of new development, we must do so in a way that recognises the entitlement of those who have nowhere to call home.

This elicited a call for more public spending on housing with a warm welcome for the low-cost government loan aimed at enabling local authorities to deliver a thousand council homes a year each – potentially 130,000 council homes in London by the end of this parliament. There was a very positive discussion about the paucity of opportunities for downsizing that would free up under-occupied family homes.  Appleby Blue by Witherford Watson Man, an alms house scheme that won last year’s RIBA Stirling Prize was cited as the kind of development that might encourage a better fit of homes to housing need, radically reducing the need for new family homes.

So, if we as civic societies wish to stand up and be counted, to be seen as on the right side of history at this crucial moment, I believe London Forum members should come together and bring something of this positivity to the table.  I wish for nothing more than the movement be seen first and foremost as significant campaigners for sustainable high quality housing that meets Londoners’ legitimate needs and aspirations.

Editorial note: the Densifying the Suburbs event page has been updated with a short report and download links to the presentations.

MHCLG has announced new funding and financial flexibilities for Councils, housing associations, and other providers to accelerate social and affordable housebuilding. It comes ahead of a £39 billion bidding window for local authorities opening in March.

Landlords will also have to meet robust standards to provide homes that are free of disrepair and damp, warm and energy efficient through a new Decent Homes Standard (DHS). There will be new Minimum Energy Efficiency Standards that could save social tenants hundreds of pounds every year on their energy bills.

We held an excellent sold-out meeting last week examining the issues, with very interesting speakers and a rapt audience. The event page has been updated with a detailed report, event photo and the pdf presentations from Tony Travers and Paul Lewin. It can be found in our events archive along with records of previous meetings.

The next London Plan, with its much higher housing targets, will increase the pressure for higher densities in the suburbs. It could guide high-density housing / mixed-use development to high accessibility locations. The shape of the new strategy will be a key issue for the new London Plan.

Issues

• What is the vision? What should the strategy be? (Speaker: Prof. Tony Travers), and 
• What would be needed to increase the density of the London suburbs?  (Speaker: Ben Derbyshire)

How much should we focus on accessible locations – around stations and town centres?

We invited representatives of London Boroughs plus others to explain their experience of delivering higher densities, after which there was a panel discussion/Q&A session.

Panel members with case studies included:

• Justin Carr: Waltham Forest
• Paul Lewin: Brent
• Heather Cheesbrough: examples from Croydon and elsewhere

Meeting Report

The purpose of the event was to explore/unpack the options for increasing housing densities in London’s suburbs; distinguish between an incremental approach and the major change in scale and character that has been common in Opportunity Areas.

Presentations

Tony Travers presentation
click image to view the pdf slides

Professor Tony Travers set the history of density policies, explaining how the word density was associated with overcrowding and poverty in the 19th century. How in the early 20th century, much of the concern was about sprawl as London continued to expand outwards. For 40 years after World War 2, London’s population was falling, so there was little pressure for denser housing.

Outer boroughs and new densities

Since the 1990s, 2.5m more people are living in London, 1m housed in the existing housing stock and 1m in new. To house further expected growth, there is an urgent need to plan for higher densities in the suburbs as well as in the city centre.

Ben Derbyshire, President of London Forum, drew on his architectural perspective to illustrate the contrast between managed densification and the tall buildings that have come to dominate in a number of opportunity areas. His challenge to the audience was that it is essential to build more homes in the suburbs and better to work constructively with planners to help it happen in a managed, thoughtful and creative way. He encouraged movement on many fronts – homes for downsizers which could liberate under-occupied family homes, co-living, re-purposing of older structures, such as older shopping centres.

Paul Lewin presentation
click image to view the pdf slides

Justin Carr and Paul Lewin spoke about their experience from the planning side in Waltham Forest and Brent respectively. Both planning authorities have been working within local policies which recognise three different types of area in their boroughs and three different approaches to densification, to suit:

• Areas of transformation/large-scale change, such as Opportunity Areas or on main roads, where tall buildings are expected
• Areas of transition (particularly those with good public transport) – gradually changing the scale (up to ten storeys in Waltham Forest) and density of an area as the opportunities arise; and
• Areas of tradition – often with low access to public transport, where limited opportunities for change exist.

Brent densification potential – ‘transitional’

The example of Brent was striking. In Brent, there is huge overcrowding south of the North Circular, and the cost of providing temporary housing for the homeless is very high. Because areas north of the North Circular have lower access to public transport the focus for housing delivery is south of the North Circular. There is pressure to build on every bit of space, and in 20 years’ time it will look and feel very different.

The discussion

Some of the early questions focused on concerns, such as overlooking and daylight as a result of proximity, height and balconies, which suggested resistance to change. However, the tone then changed with the majority of questions/comments reflecting a better understanding of the considered and sensitive approach being taken by both local planners and architects to exploring opportunities for increasing densities, as part of the transitional approach. The discussion reflected a much better appreciation of the likely scale and pace of change that will face many of London’s suburbs, and how challenging that will be to residents in and around areas marked for transformation, for example opportunity areas.

Densifying the suburbs – Ben Derbyshire

The Government issued a new version of the National Planning Policy Framework with a consultation until 10th March 2026. London Forum’s members are asked to consider the local implications of the proposed planning rules and to respond to the consultation. Specific concerns or recommendations can be notified to us.

There was a long debate in Parliament on the proposed new NPPF.

The lawyer Nicola Gooch has issued an NPPF briefing with additional links and Simon Ricketts has commented on the content of the new NPPF.

The latest projections from the Office of National Statistics (ONS) show that between 2022 and 2032, the number of households in England is expected to grow from 23.5 million to 25.9 million, an increase of 10.3%. That is equivalent to an average of 242,000 additional households per year. Nearly two-thirds of that increase will come from households headed by someone over 65 years old. Rates of increase will be much lower for households headed by someone under retirement age.

An ageing population and a decline in the birth rate will bring a significant change in the pattern of households across England within the next decade. Households including children are expected to fall by 8.4% in the 10 years ending in 2032, from 6.7 million to 6.1 million; and such households will therefore fall from 28.3% to 23.6% of the total number of households. The corollary is that the proportion of households without children will rise from 71.7 % to 76.4%. And one-person households are expected to increase by 19.6%, from 7.1 million to 8.6 million, with particularly strong increases among the elderly.

The pattern of these changes varies across England, and indeed across London. This reflects significant differences in the age profile of the population in local authority areas in different parts of the country; and also differing patterns of migration both within the UK and to-and-from other countries.

Households in London

The number of households in London as a whole (excluding the special case of the City of London) is projected to increase by 10.8%, from 3.4 million to 3.8 million. But Tower Hamlets shows the highest rate of increase of any local authority in England, at 25.9%, and Newham (16.1%), Camden (14.1%) and Greenwich (13.6%) also show high rates of increase. But Enfield shows a much lower rate of increase at only 4.6%, along with Bromley (6.9%) and Richmond on Thames (7.7%). Higher rates of increase thus seem to be characteristic of most inner London boroughs, while in outer London the rates tend to be lower. But there are exceptions: Hillingdon shows a higher-than-average increase of 12.2%, while Lambeth is lower than average at 8.1%.

Household Formation and Housing Targets

Following the reforms introduced by the Government last year, household projections no longer play any part in the standard formula for determining housing targets. But it is worth noting that the housing target now set for London is 88,000 completions a year, more than twice the projected increase of 36,600 each year in the number of households. If the target were to be achieved, it should therefore lead to an increase in the supply of homes per household, and in theory to a beneficial effect on affordability. But any beneficial impact on meeting the housing needs of both the current and the future population of London would depend on careful assessment of the nature and scale of those needs, and of the kinds of homes to be built, in terms of size, tenure and location.

As noted above, there are large variations in the rates of new household formation across London. We shall have to wait until the early summer before we see how the 88,000 new homes target has been allocated – following discussions between the GLA and the boroughs – across each of the 32 London boroughs. But if there is to be any relationship at all between the targets and the rates of new household formation, the allocations would have to be very different from the indicative figures for each borough published by the Government last year. For nearly all boroughs the Government’s indicative figures were higher than the projected number of new households. But the excess between the indicative target and the number of new households varies from inner London boroughs such as Newham (27%) and Greenwich (66%) to between 400% and 500% in outer London boroughs such as Richmond and Bromley. But in Tower Hamlets, the indicative target was 29% below the ONS projection of new households.

The decision to abandon the use of household projections as a key part of the standard method for determining housing targets was fully justified. As the ONS itself has said, ‘the projections are not a prediction or forecast of how many houses should be built in the future’. Nevertheless, the data discussed in this article indicates that the projections should continue to play a part in the detailed analysis of current and future housing needs at local level that should form the basis of the calculations on which housing targets are set for each London borough.

Michael Jubb, Chair

Housebuilding near well-connected train stations will receive a default “yes” through a new National Planning Policy Framework, to be consulted on later in 2025. Details are here.

In addition, there is a set of changes to the Planning & Regeneration Bill, which the Government says is a “Pro-growth package unshackling Britain to get building”.

As part of it, Councils must inform Government when inclined to block applications of 150 homes or more. Ministers will make the decision instead. Applications called in will not have to go to an inquiry but there will be an option for written representations.