Planning for a better London

Level up with the rest of Europe (including Eastern Europe) and help replace leasehold with commonhold. Time to end this feudalistic, exploitative practice. We, shared-ownerships and other leaseholders, shouldn’t be slaves to billionaire developers, filling their pockets with money willy-nilly through service charges and other bills. One has more rights when shopping on Amazon or eBay, than when buying or living in a leasehold property. Serve the many not the few! Whose interests are you truly representing? Never in my life I worried about money, owning share of freehold flats, as much as I do living in a shared-ownership apartment in your flagship development and estate regeneration project of Woodberry Down, Hackney. This affordable home was affordable at the time of buying. I am worried that this year or soon enough I won’t be able to afford my service charge. I don’t even know yet how much I will be paying for this year - it’s impossible to predict and prepare. Make the system functional, democratic, well balanced and fair.

Ensuring developers submit a certain amount of affordable housing in new developments to address London’s housing shortage.

New housing developments should incorporate more historical and modern architecture, rather than being dull copies of existing buildings.

Introducing a law to prevent foreign investors and Airbnb from buying or renting properties from new build housing developments, which are often left empty due to their limited use.

Finally, addressing existing residents’ concerns about development, such as gentrification. Developers in areas lacking investment often noticed a divide between new build developments, which are often expensive to live in and lack local amenities, and existing communities. Some argue that new housing developments don’t benefit the existing community due to these issues.

Foreign investors buying London homes is not a bug, it’s a feature of the London economy. They are responsible for almost 30% of housing transactions. The government will never change that. 

With being overpopulated, then it sounds like a good idea.   What I find unfair is that some have been born here who have parents who were born elsewhere in the world, don’t get the help they require.  Hi myself was born in Cyprus and have lived in England since I was a four-year-old and now I am 77.  After a bad divorce, I had to go into the rented accommodation owned by a private landlord.   After being given section 21, to leave the property, I’ve applied twice to Barnet home but as I’m not homeless, I do not get considered.  People like  who are going through cancer have no one else to turn to.   The system needs to be a little bit more fair to the people born and bred here in the UK.

We’re being told it’s all about not having enough homes and needing to build more. That if we just build more, prices will come down and the crisis will be solved. That the planning system is at the root of all the problems and it needs to be ripped up.

But the facts point in a very different direction.

• Between 2013 and 2023, London’s population grew by 6%. The number of homes grew by 11% in the same period. And yet, rents went up by 33%. And house prices are up by nearly 65%. So, we’re building faster than the population is growing, and homes are still getting further out of reach.
• 300,000 homes in London have planning permission but haven’t been built. That’s a 5 to 10 year supply of planning permissions and there are many more in the pipeline. The planning system is working fine. 

87,000 houses are not primary residencies! 

According to the Office for Budget Responsibility, even with major planning reforms: “More housebuilding will increase the housing stock by just 0.5% by 2029-2030 and only reduce the average house price by around 0.8-0.9%.”

That’s the government’s own forecast

So many flats being built with very little allocated to social housing or affordable rent. Its so disheartening to see so many londoners being forced out of the places they call home because of the ridiculous rental market. Its also ridiculous that young people are being forced to either stay home or live in uncomfortable settings just to stay in london. 

All well and good building these new homes  but aren't you not building ghettos of the future without adequate  greenspace  and access to wildlife enough is enough!  

Have you utilised all the empty homes before deciding to build more or is it  a sop to the construction lobbyists?

I strongly disagree with building on greenbelt. Developing on greenbelt is not necessary and opens a Pandora's Box of consequences. The whole point of the greenbelt was to stop this very thing from happening and the fact that councils such as Enfield can overturn it as easily as they can is alarming. I am from a deprived area of the borough of Enfield and can not afford private transport so my only accessible part of countryside is the Enfield greenbelt which is now severely under threat and remnants of it risk changing it's character into a glorified urban park. I also argue that once we start taking out chunks of greenbelt, when will enough be enough? 

I believe the demand for housing in London is heavily influenced by the uneven state of the UK economy. The national government must do more to ensure the economic growth and improvement of cities elsewhere such as former industrial cities like Hull or Middlesbrough as some of these places in the north are still shrinking in population while London rises rapidly. People come to London as the opportunity here is so greater than everywhere else and I believe that's doing us a disservice due to uncontrollable house prices and overcrowding our public services.

Simple. Who are these new homes for? 

More exploration of brownfield sites across London should be considered before taking green belt areas 

I am concerned about what parts of the green belt will be released . Some areas are being considered are definitely not grey belt appropriate areas such as Trent park and areas of green fields adjacent to it which are part of the historical Enfield chase and are rich in biodiversity. These areas provide the lungs for the urban areas that south of this area

I'd like to voice how pleased I am that we have a chance to share our opinion on the housing situation in London. I think the price and availability of housing - which as we know are intimately linked - are the top issue facing London today. 

I firmly believe that a huge extent of the issue can be addressed by simply building more. Questions of exactly what and where to build are somewhat secondary to simply building more. 

I am in favour of green belt land getting released to allow building there. I think developers should face fewer regulatory barriers and have fewer requirements to have a portion of the housing they build be affordable - I believe that if we were building the number of homes required for London then housing would naturally be a lot more affordable.

I believe it should be on housing developers to assess whether there's demand in a particular area. If a developer wants to build a development in a place without good transport links I think they should be allowed to. 

I do think our infrastructure needs to grow at least somewhat proportionately with the number of homes. However, I think the solution is to build e.g. transport infrastructure where required, not to block housing development in areas that don't have good existing infrastructure. 

The land that City airport occupies is big enough to create a large community with good transportation links and facilities. Much to the detriment of residents, City airport continues to pollute with poisonous gasses and noise.  

Rent controls have failed in every city  they have been introduced, you have to be a whole new level of obtuse to do them in London. Please dont 

Having looked at the so called affordable homes many times, they are no where near to being that. Service charges, mortgages with high rates not to mention the poor structures of many. Standard rents are unaffordable as we desperately need a rent cap, and these figures are used towards pricing this unaffordable housing.

There are thousands of empty homes in this city that could be repurposed, why not start there? Added to which, as a Haringey resident, I have heard that my council doesn't even have accurate records of all the property it owns, so perhaps they could be found too.

This is not to mention that the builders employed have huge monopolies and want a big profit from their builds so stagger their roll out to create more demand. Turning housing in to a for profit venture has taken away what should have been happening - which is council house and housing association building.

London assembly needs to reassess what an affordable home is. I am in my mid forties, and most friends I made here who are the same age have left this city over the past decade because of housing. The average wage of a londoner is completely skewed by the small amount of high earners.