Building new homes

What challenges do you think this poses for London? The main challenge is to make delivery bodies efficient and to give a chance to a new innovative delivery entities. Another challenge is managing costs making them public.
What do you think new homes need to deliver for London? new homes have to be the kind of homes where individuals and families want to live and remain for ever and not as a step towards getting the ideal home. Creating communities by this way.
Where should new homes be built to maximise the benefits for Londoners? in every single brown site available, over the sites where Housing Associations have old homes (demolishing them and building up to five levels buildings), over one main road or more in every single ward (for instance, making residential Gloucester Place in Marylebone area in London), over current tube stations.

Make the planning process quicker and make those on planning committees more accountable when they oppose the recommendations of the councils own professional planning advisers. If they cannot give a valid reason for refusing an application when the applicant complies with council/government policy then their position on planning committees should be reviewed. I live in Barnet and in my experience planning decisions are partisan rather than voting on what is needed/allowed. Also build on brownfield sites, and allow granny flats/studios to be built in rear gardens. London is one of the greenest city's in the world and there is plenty of room for new homes.

A critical question not asked is what other alternative courses of action. exist ? Should not the state at local and national levels be seeking to utilize the properties that already exist. In the aftermath of the Grenfell fire Jeremy Corbyn advocated the compulsory requisitioning of the many high value properties that are known to stand empty in Kensington and Chelsea. Unfortunately this a line that has not been pursued. After all, it would never do to offend the principle of private property right, would it, even when confronted by an actual emergency ??

In addition it is worth pointing out that, since the 1970's at least, there has never been a national shortage of housing. What does exist are mismatches caused by the vagaries of the market, which manifest themselves in at least two respects ie
(1).There are plenty of empty homes in the deindustrialised regions of the UK. What does not exist are the jobs to match. More particularly, the work that does exist consists predominantly of the deskilled low wage variety that makes even renting property difficult., on a long term basis.
(2) The scandal created by using housing as investment, rather than as places to live. This is a problem not limited to London. It exists in "areas of national beauty" throughout the UK, where properties have been bought as holiday homes and dried up the supply of housing to local people.

What is demanded is a redistribution of resources away from the South East such that they are redirected towards the relatively impoverished regions of the UK. Furthermore, the Labour Party should put in its banner :

"Property for social utility not private investment"

Before we draw up plans to build more homes (not that these are not required in significant numbers), we must ensure that all existing homes are occupied. Unfortunately the neo-liberal practice of putting developers and their profits first, to the detriment of Londoners on low and modest incomes - the majority - has meant that many homes are built to remain empty. Their rents are far beyond the means of most, and they end up being purchased by wealthy individuals and companies located abroad. This must end. No dwelling should remain unoccupied for more than six months. When this period has elapsed empty properties should be requisitioned by the local authority to be let out at a low rent to those on the housing waiting list. As a society we must no longer be prepared to tolerate a housing situation in which we have the obscenity of long council waiting lists of desperate people in acute housing distress, plus an ever growing toll of street homelessness whilst newly constructed and older homes stand empty.

However, we must ensure that we utilise all 'brownfield' land in London (and other cities and towns) before encroaching on the green belt, a precious resource bequeathed to us by the past which MUST be preserved for the use and benefit of present and future generations. It is truly the 'lung' of London. Part of this utilisation of 'brownfield' land must be via the re-use of public land for public purposes. e.g. council housing. Far too much public land is being lost to us forever, being quietly sold off to private developers to erect unaffordable properties. Land now available after the closure of Holloway Prison in north London should be used to build the council homes greatly needed by those on the local authority waiting list. Other prison sites in London and elsewhere should also be retained for public and community use.

I would also point out that all new homes should be safe: the tragedy of Grenfell bears this out a thousandfold.

Where I live, there are lots of green spaces. Set against the obvious benefits, the drawback is that this means is not the density of houses to support local shops and pubs, which means many people pollute everyone around them by driving to the supermarket every week. So - counter-intuitively - we end up more polluted and unhealthily reliant on our cars, because the houses are too spread out.

To my mind, having more flats and houses near our tube station will help make a viable business case for a greengrocer, butcher, fishmonger etc, leading to a thriving parade of local shops and obviating the need to drive to the supermarket. Many of my neighbours only hang on to their polluting old car for the weekly supermarket shop. They'd love the opportunity to get rid of their cars and instead walk to the shops without breathing everyone else's pollution.

Therefore to my mind, building more houses and flats in my area, as long as car use is discouraged, will actually improve the quality of life for everyone. The most important thing in my view is that they are built to be zero-carbon - i.e. properly insulated so that they do not need any heating - and that they have bike racks and an electric car sharing scheme instead of car parking spaces.

Owning a car in a city is fast becoming obsolete. Soon, cars will be driverless and a sharable asset. If I were designing housing programmes, I'd want to future-proof them.

What challenges do you think this poses for London?
The challenges are that we need to start turning down for-profit developers building things we don't need even though they funded our mayoral candidates.

What do you think new homes need to deliver for London?
Genuine affordability for people on low or average salaries and proper urban design.

Where should new homes be built to maximise the benefits for Londoners?
People on average salaries use public transport so we need to use what we've got and try to improve these services. For example London Overground could run more trains than it currently does.
I think we should stop building huge office towers over the next 5 years and use all available space for homes.
The site near the olympic aquatic centre is being wasted on such developments - it has been designed with very little consultation.

I think that growth should be sustainable. We can often see overcrowded properties that are not built for the purpose. When a state gets overcrowded, I think that is sensible to allow it to expand vertically. This expansion should be followed by an increase of public infrastructures such as schools, police or hospitals. Furthermore, I think that is important that any new built gets rapidly occupied. I think that makes very little sense to build a state, where the people who are meant to be there, cannot afford to live there. Investors might buy the property but it won't help the problem. I think that wherever new homes are built, the price of these needs to represent the population who work and live in the area.

Who do you care for first? Well it's family ain't it? As well as caring for them I would hope that you also take an interest in your neighbours' welfare. Neighbourhoods together from communities and communities coalesce into a society. Well my neighbourhood on the Isle of Dogs is being devastated and strangled by rampant overdevelopment uncontrolled by Tower Hamlets council and without proper or prospective infrastructure. Mayor Khan often uses the clarion call "You are a Londoner". He seeks to represent Londoners. Well I am proud to be a Londoner but I am also an Islander [by which I mean a resident of the Isle of Dogs for 35 years; London is dumping its housing problem on us on the Isle of Dogs without solving it and we cannot take the strain. The builds are not for anything anywhere near adequate social housing but for skyscrapers with sky-high prices. Mayor Khan needs to show he understands what’s happening to us on the Island and the looming series of catastrophes that we are facing. He should come and visit us and see for himself what his policies have done. He needs to release some Mayoral CIL money to help us. The largest part of the hundreds of millions that he now has in that fund was raised here at our cost.
These issues extend beyond gentrification/manageable growth/development into a looming transport crisis and infrastructure breakdown. Tfl are already calling the situation “challenging”: a euphemism for “we are not going to be able to cope”. Thames Water can't cope now; water pressure here is a joke; mains burst often; taps run dry. Mayor Biggs says he has limited ability to act due in part to Mayor Khan's policies. Mayor Khan blames Westminster. My local MP refuses to get involved. At a recent PQT I asked Mayor Khan to come and see us on the Isle of Dogs and release some CIL money for infrastructure. He claimed not to know which particular development I was talking about, claimed he had been here several times and he diverted the CIL issue to HIF.

2 options exist that have been successfully repeated many times in history:

- 1. Build over the railway lines, while building over stations has been discussed recently, building over the railway lines would unlock a lot more space at a lower cost and is available immediately. Modern building methods and the value of housing make this viable.

- 2. Lower the roads and build over the top. Again modern building methods and the value of housing make this viable.

Both will make London quieter, open up green spaces for walking and cycling lanes, while allowing traffic to flow and pollution to be controlled.

Through planning control and the volume of housing created means that these homes can be targeted to meet the needs of all of London's social housing requirements and the needs of families and professionals alike.

Incrementally remove house building restrictions on land that is within 15 minute walk of a train station, unless it's a public accessible park or area of outstanding natural beauty. This is only about 3% of London's 'green' land, and would provide 1M homes at medium density:

https://www.adamsmith.org/news/press-release-new-paper-reveals-where-lo…

I have explained how you can build 250,000 homes (affordable too) a year without it costing a penny of taxpayers money. Read my article - 'The Garden of Eden, a guilt free solution to the housing crisis' in Septembers MATURE TIMES on line or in the paper if you can get it. Too much to explain here. The solution is simple, its criminal on the young people of our country, for the Goverment not to impliment it immediatley.

Since working to try save a large area of Green Belt (21 acre site) here in London NW7 from an ill conceived plan to concrete it and turn it into a built environment, I have come to realise that many organisations wish to flatten and develop what is a local and national asset, our Green Belt and MOL (Metropolitan Open Land).

Its seems these irreplaceable areas of land are in the sights of some.

So far the Mayor has stood by his pledges to protect the Green Belt from such, by refusing the application here (Case Ref 4155), having been approved by our local council.
Whilst this particular application was not housing, it does throw into question, if the Mayor had not acted to protect the Green Belt from our councils decision to overrule its own officer's recommendation to refuse, then another slice of Green Belt would have gone, lost for future generations to enjoy.

It is peace meal destruction of our Green Belt and MOL, and with London's population growing the pressure will only increase.

It seems most of the housing being developed on Green Belt is not affordable.

I guess we have to make a choice in how we deal with the housing pressure, do we preserve our Green Open Spaces and be more innovative in how we provide housing, or do we allow councils and property developers to flatten it, to build executive homes, theme parks and golf courses.

Its our choice, get involved or lose it - once its gone, its gone !

'425,000 houses now planned for Green Belt, of which more than 70% are unaffordable':
http://www.cpre.org.uk/resources/housing-and-planning/green-belts/item/…

Almost half of London is green space, made up of public open space and private/residential gardens. The ide that London is a concrete jungle is nonsense. Take a look at Google Earth and you will see how different London is to many other cities around the world. London is an economic and social magnet, people choose to move here because of the opportunities the city provides, providing suitable and sustainable housing is the only way to keep London a centre of trade and society. Brown-field sites must be used for proper houses, not bland and soulless towers of glass! A really radical idea would be to review the green belt, London has a very obvious border, the M25. Developing and improving transport links within this border would enable the development of new suburbs, with space for family homes, employment and social infrastructure. Containing the city within the M25 is far more sustainable than turn the entire South East into a vast commuter region. Radical and forward thinking ideas are needed.