Housing plans for the capital

Boris Johnson has announced plans to build 42,000 homes a year in the capital over the next 10 years.

Obviously if this goes ahead it will be a significant increase on the 16,800 homes that were built in the year April 2013 to March 2014 and is a start but will it be enough? The Greater London Authority doesn’t think so and estimates that the actual need is between 49,000 and 62,000. Taking into account the demand for housing in London, this would mean that there will still be a shortfall of around 20,000 homes per year.

Under recent planning rules commuter towns would bear the burden with areas like Hertfordshire having to accommodate as many as 14,000 new homes. However, the Mayor’s office says that the GLA believes that it can meet the higher figure of 49,000 without disturbing greenbelt land by building more homes within town centres and on industrial land and that they are not asking councils outside London to meet the capital’s shortfall but is recommending common sense planning to ensure that London and the South East’s housing needs are better met over the coming years.

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