Last reviewed 16 November 2023
The Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, and leaders from across London’s housebuilding sector have agreed a new blueprint for action on housebuilding to boost the supply of new homes.
The Mayor and London Councils had re-convened the “London Housing Delivery Taskforce” in August and September, to bring together the capital’s housing industry to discuss solutions after experts warned of a major decline in housebuilding across the country.
Now, in a letter to Secretary of State for Housing, Michael Gove, the Mayor has warned of a lack of national leadership in this area and called for the Government to match his commitment to boost the supply of new homes and to implement the Taskforce’s recommendations in order to avoid a serious downturn in housebuilding.
Mr Khan provided an industry-endorsed “joint position statement” (available here) setting out the critical challenges facing housing developers in the capital and some of the major interventions that both the Government and City Hall can take to rectify them.
Among the proposals is a major boost to council homebuilding, which is needed to protect jobs and the wider construction sector supply chain.
Other measures Ministers are urged to take forward include scrapping the proposed new Infrastructure Levy and removing the uncertainty caused by a lack of clarity on fire safety rules around second staircases on taller buildings, which are holding up developments.
Fiona Fletcher-Smith, who chairs the G15 group of London’s leading housing associations, said: “We have to get the sector building again in order to meet the scale of today’s housing crisis, but without long-term thinking, certainty and political commitment that is just not possible.”