English town planning, urban design and property development
I’ve had enough of reading the text of the new Planning for the Future White Paper. So I decided to look at the pictures instead. These reinforce some of my concerns about the application of the reforms to town and city centres, and to other forms of development.
If monitoring London’s housing supply is so important, why is there such uncertainty about what is actually happening? The Secretary of State may well be right to urge greater transparency in London’s housing statistics.
The new London Plan’s new housing targets require a substantial increase in density, especially on smaller sites. But has development density in London really increased in recent years? Is it realistic to expect it to grow further? GLA data would seem to suggest there has been little change in the average density of new permissions over the last 13 years or so.
Why do we measure the success of affordable housing policies by looking at percentages? Does this obscure the fact that, in most boroughs, less than half the planned-for number of affordable homes are delivered? What does this mean for policy?
Public sector land is supposed to be a key source of new homes. But how successful have the last two Government programmes been at actually building homes?
Is the UK’s housing crisis particularly acute or unique, when compared with Europe? How do we do when compared with other countries with similarly high levels of population growth?