Key information
Request reference number: MGLA030124-3464
Date of response:
Summary of request
Your request
Please provide the total number and proportion of new homes that for each year since 2016 are wheelchair accessible. If that could also be broken down by Borough that would be wonderful.
Our response
Unfortunately, to provide the information you have requested would exceed the ‘appropriate limit’ of £450 set by the Freedom of Information (Appropriate Limit and Fees) Regulations 2004. Under section 12 of the FOI Act, we are not obliged to comply with a request if the cost of determining whether we hold the information, locating and retrieving it and extracting it from other information would exceed the appropriate limit. This is calculated at £25 per hour for every hour spent on the activities described and equates to 18 hours of work. In order to respond to your FoI request we would need to review reporting requirements for each affordable housing programme that the GLA delivered since 2016 and determine whether information on wheelchair accessibility was collected as part of this programme.
The GLA does collect and report on information on wheelchair accessible and wheelchair users homes at planning stage as wheelchair accessible dwellings are secured via planning conditions for new homes in London. This information is available in London Datastore.
Planning applications for new homes in London are assessed against the London Plan, which requires 90 per cent of new-build homes to be accessible and adaptable and 10 per cent to be provided as wheelchair user dwellings. There is readily available information in London datastore on how the proportion of new-build residential dwellings that meet the access standards M4(2) Accessible and adaptable dwellings and M4(3) Wheelchair user dwellings that can be accessed via the link here: Residential approvals of M4(2) Accessible and adaptable and M4(3) Wheelchair user dwellings - London Datastore