The Mayor commissioned independent consultants to identify the barriers to housing delivery in the capital. He was concerned to realise the considerable housing potential of the development capacity in London's planning pipeline, and to explore how the construction sector can make a greater contribution to economic recovery.

The consultants' report is available below. It suggests that considerable private sector construction activity is underway but has yet to inform official statistics. However, because nearly half the private sector capacity in the pipeline is controlled by companies who, for a range of reasons, are unlikely to actually build, the full potential of the pipeline is unlikely to be realised. This is not the only barrier to delivery. Others include the amount of new housing on individual sites which can be absorbed by local markets; funding constraints; capacity among 'active' builders and the need for consistency in the national planning regime. Of a lesser order are constraints imposed by some of the bodies involved in local and strategic planning bodies in London.