Written by Mark Harrison

Yesterday LREF saw nearly 2,000 delegates, including four from the Kanda team, attend London’s Guildhall to discuss the latest trends in the development industry in the Capital.

Speakers acknowledged many bright spots – including strong demand for high-quality office space in prime locations, and London’s underlying strengths as a leading global city – but LREF couldn’t help but be dominated by the dire state of the residential market in London. The appallingly low level of housing starts in London this year has now become mainstream national news, as it undermines the Government’s commitments to boosting housebuilding.

During the day, delegates speculated as to how far the GLA would go in announcing planning changes in an attempt to address viability challenges and kickstart the market.

In the end, Deputy Mayor for Planning Jules Pipe CBE held back from making specific announcements on reforms, but gave a clear commitment that significant reform is coming very soon.

Both he and Deputy Mayor for Housing Tom Copley fully acknowledged the crisis in London’s housing development market. Tom Copley highlighted how London needs to construct 88,000 new homes a year – more than has been achieved since the 1930s – in one of the most expensive places in the world to construct homes (second only to Geneva). He acknowledged that the context for the London Plan has changed significantly since 2016, necessitating flexible application of rules, and that the new London Plan will streamline these rules to ease viability issues.

Jules Pipe went further. He signalled three areas where he wanted the ‘froth to be cleared’ immediately and a more flexible approach taken on dual aspect, cycle parking and cooling standards. This wasn’t to downgrade the importance of these policies – but instead to state that boroughs should not be taking an inflexible or maximalist approach to these standards and blocking or delaying housing as a result.

He signalled that a significant announcement on addressing viability is coming shortly and reiterated that the Mayor will be calling in applications where boroughs are being obstructive and following the letter – and not the spirit – of the London Plan.

In response to a question about what to do about existing consents for new homes that are no longer buildable he asked for developers to come in and talk to the GLA.

Jules Pipe was joined at his session by Andy Roe, the new Chair of the Building Safety Regulator. He impressed the room with his forthright acknowledgement of the failures of the BSR and his clear action plan for improving the service. He articulated his personal commitment to building an effective regulator that doesn’t hold back construction of new homes but emphasised that maintaining the requirement for a second staircase in tall buildings was a personal red line for him.

Everyone at LREF agreed that London’s residential property market is in a devastating lull – but the commitments from Jules Pipe and Andy Roe injected some hope that we could be at the bottom of the curve; providing a clear recognition of the issues and giving delegates an expectation of significant improvements to come.