London’s neighbours may have to accept 200,000 new homes over the next 10 years because of the capital’s unwillingness to consider changes to its Green Belt.
When Mayor Boris Johnson’s unveiled his housing plans last year he proposed building a further 42,000 homes a year to meet population growth in the capital. But a few months later the Greater London Authority’s own housing market analysis put the actual need at between 49,000 and 62,000.
Which begs the question; who will accommodate this potential shortfall of up to 20,000 homes a year?
At this stage in the game London is refusing to consider building on its green belt and this is causing uproar with its neighbours. Luton council, for example, has accused the GLA of applying ‘double standards’ by refusing to countenance a revision of its Green Belt whilst expecting its neighbours to do so.
Umbrella group, South East Councils has called on the GLA to review the London Green Belt and ‘do more to meet its own housing need’.
Our own research shows that, under current London proposals, the majority of councils across the wider south east can each be expected to have to accommodate between 1,000 and 5,000 extra new homes by 2025, with those closest to London facing the greatest pressure.
However, if the Green Belt around London is maintained, the leapfrog effect will mean locations further out from London – such as East Hertfordshire, Medway and Chelmsford – having to accommodate more than 11,000 extra dwellings. This would be on top of meeting their own existing housing needs and is the equivalent of a new garden city, or Ebbsfleet, for each of these councils.
Even then, other areas could be expected to accommodate the equivalent of several new large urban extensions in addition to their own unmet needs. Some areas may choose to work together to deliver larger garden city developments. Perhaps only councils covered with Green Belt will be able to resist, but this in turn increases the pressure on those councils further out not covered by Green Belt.
New housing for Londoners in those locations then increases the distance that commuters back into London will need to travel. The Mayor believes building on industrial land, town centre intensification and releasing more public sector land to developers will help meet London’s housing needs, and also says that his proposed figures are a minimum and that individual boroughs should identify additional capacity in their own plans.
The Mayor is also pinning hopes on a 2050 Long Term Infrastructure Investment Plan as a vehicle for exploring bigger strategic questions about expansion within and beyond London’s borders. But many believe that in deferring a decision to fully test whether the Green Belt in London itself should be relaxed, and not defining how long term needs will be met, the Mayor’s proposals have not positively sought to meet the housing needs of London, leading to unmet housing need and unsustainable patterns of development, contrary to the National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF).
The concerns of the neighbouring councils have been registered in consultations on the Further Alterations to the London Plan (FALP) which closed earlier this year.
These objections will be considered by the Planning Inspector at a public examination into the London Plan, which is due to take place in September this year. The stakes are never higher in planning than when it comes to housing and Green Belt. Expect a lively debate!
This blog first appeared as an article in The Guardian on 20th August
