London Councils’ Housing Forum
The London Housing Strategy
Report by:
Nigel Minto
Date:
29 June 2009
Contact Officer:
Philip Clifford
Telephone:
020 7934 9792
Summary
Item no:
Job title:
Head of Sustainable Communities
Email:
[email protected]
4
The draft for public consultation of the London Housing Strategy was
launched on 21 May 2009. Whilst largely similar to previous drafts,
London Councils has identified three elements within the strategy, which
warrant particular focus: delivery, design and devolution.
In order to shape our response and to provide scope for informed debate
amongst London boroughs, we will be working with Members and London
borough housing directors over the summer, before submitting a formal
response in the early autumn.
Recommendations
This report is an attempt to kick-start that process. It outlines the key
issues for discussion, the key questions boroughs might like to consider
and sets the ground for an ongoing dialogue between London Councils
and the Mayor regarding the future of housing delivery in London.
1. Members are asked to note the three key themes of the London
Housing Strategy:
 Raising aspirations, promoting opportunity
 Improving Homes
 Maximising delivery, optimising value for money
2. Members may wish to use the questions set out below to form the
basis of their discussion with the Mayor’s Director of Housing Richard
Blakeway regarding:
 Delivery
 Design
 Devolution
3. Members are asked to note that a previous report setting out in detail
the policies contained within the London Housing Strategy is attached,
for reference, at Appendix 1.
Introduction
1. Launched on 21 May 2009, the draft for public consultation of the London
Housing Strategy sets out the Mayor’s vision for housing in the Capital and
provides Londoners with an opportunity to consider and comment ahead of the
close of consultation on 31 August.
2. This draft follows statutory consultation with the London Assembly and functional
bodies, the details of which were captured in reports to the Housing Forum on 3
December 2008 and 26 March 2009. As such, this report focuses on what
London Councils believes are three key elements of the latest draft: delivery,
design and devolution.
3. To this end, there follows a brief overview of main points contained in the strategy
and series of structured questions designed to prepare Members for engagement
with Richard Blakeway, the Mayor’s Director of Housing who is attending the
Housing Forum on 29 June.
4. The final London Housing Strategy is due to be signed-off and published by the
end of 2009. It will sit alongside the Homes and Communities Agency’s Regional
Investment Plan for London, a new Housing Capacity and Strategic Land
Availability Assessment, the London Design Guide, Supplementary Planning
Guidance and the recently published Strategic Housing Market Assessment.
The London Housing Strategy: Three Key Themes, Three Key Elements
5. The section below sets out the headline policies captured by each of the key
themes identified in the Strategy. Largely, these have been detailed in previous
reports to the Housing Forum, which Members will have had the opportunity to
comment on.
6. However, within each theme is an initiative of particular importance which we feel
deserves further consideration. In order to facilitate this discussion we have set
out a series of questions which we believe will form a useful starting point in
shaping London Councils’ response to the Mayor.
Raising aspirations, promoting opportunity
7. A commitment to halve severe overcrowding and to reduce by two-thirds under
occupation in social rented homes by 2020. This will be supported by the use of
Targeted Funding Stream resources to increase the number of extensions and
deconversions. For reference, the table below sets out the distribution of
resources allocated across the Mayor’s housing investment programme for the
period 2008-10:
Borough
Barking and Dagenham
City of London
Hackney
Havering
Redbridge
2008-10 £000s
Gypsy
and Improving the Innovation
Total
Traveller Site condition
of and
Grant
existing homes
opportunity
16
1,807
1,823
1,017
887
1,904
Newham
Tower Hamlets
Waltham Forest
East Sub-Region
East Sub-Region Total
Bexley
Bromley
Lewisham
Greenwich
Southwark
South East Sub-Region
South
East
SubRegion Total
Croydon
Lambeth
Kingston-upon-Thames
Merton
Richmond-uponThames
Sutton
Wandsworth
South West Sub-Region
South
West
SubRegion Total
Brent
Ealing
Hammersmith
and
Fulham
Harrow
Hillingdon
Hounslow
Kensington and Chelsea
West Sub-Region
West Sub-region Total
Barnet
Camden
Enfield
Haringey
Islington
Westminster
North Sub-region
North Sub-region Total
London Total
16
171
171
1,774
2,023
5,500
2,023
7,274
20,159
22,950
10,217
20,159
33,183
171
1,000
30
13,860
14,890
4,800
1,502
6,302
5,800
1,532
13,860
21,363
2,857
2,857
1,997
1,997
248
66
100
2,063
19,161
19,261
166
3,105
2,035
19,161
24,429
2,822
2,035
978
2,822
1,775
1,775
15,780
16,758
6,632
15,780
23,390
500
3,735
4,235
200
2,000
16,433
19,133
92,992
1,831
6,468
2,031
8,468
16,433
31,167
133,532
978
2,250
248
12,034
38,290
8. Greater emphasis on use of the private rented sector (PRS) to house vulnerable
and homeless people. The strategy proposes to make full use of the private
rented sector as a discharge of duty for homeless households, but only where
there is an accredited landlord and a minimum two year tenancy.
9. Provision of new low cost home ownership options, with eligibility for the Mayor’s
First Steps scheme assessed in terms of income rather than employment. A
desire to see regional variation in the eligibility criteria of national schemes such
as mortgage rescue and Income Support for Mortgage Interest, to take account of
the higher incomes and higher house prices experienced by working families in
London.
10. A commitment to a, as yet unspecified, pan-London mobility scheme by 2011. A
commitment to invest £5 million in Seaside and Country Homes and the provision
of sites to meet the requirements of the Gypsies and Travellers Needs
Assessment.
11. A desire to see more institutional investment in the private rented sector, with
better information available for tenants and the expansion of the land lord
accreditation scheme
12. A continued commitment to deliver 50,000 affordable homes for the period 200811. 20,000 of these homes will be intermediate and of the remaining 30,000
social rented homes, 42 per cent will have three or more bedrooms and 1,250 will
be supported accommodation. By 2011, it is proposed that 16 per cent of
intermediate homes will have three bedrooms or more.
13. The table below sets out projected public sector housing completions for the
period 2008-11. Members will note that the split between social rented homes
and intermediate homes remains 70:30.
Of which…
Social rented
Intermediate
44,072
27,163
16,909
6,015
3,248
2,767
50,087
30,411
19,676
Affordable homes
HCA
Other
Total
14. Replacement of the 50 per cent affordable housing target with individual boroughbased targets to be discussed and negotiated with boroughs.
Housing
investment targets will be agreed with all boroughs on the same basis as Local
Area Agreement (LAA) targets on affordable housing and the two processes will
be brought together. The tables below, based on data contained in the London
Housing Strategy, sets out the current state of these negotiations.
Targets agreed
Targets under negotiation
Total
Borough name
Barking and Dagenham
Barnet
Bexley
Brent
Camden
City of London
Croydon
Enfield
Greenwich
Hackney
Hammersmith & Fulham
Haringey
Number of boroughs
21
12
33
Agreed target
1,785
Number of Homes
23,154
17,105
40,259
Existing LAA targets
1,785
2,269
566
1,374
1,000
50
1,803
648
1,779
967
1,115
1,356
591
1,487
1,629
1,020
Harrow
Hillingdon
Hounslow
Islington
Kensington & Chelsea
Kingston upon Thames
Lambeth
Lewisham
Merton
Richmond upon Thames
Southwark
Sutton
Tower Hamlets
Waltham Forest
Wandsworth
Westminster
Total

656
598
730
1,902
270
1,803
1,395
398
2,453
1,090
1,221
925
23,154
600
465
675
1,490
420
1,600
1,287
315
398
2,215
660
5,064
996
1,125
594
29,415
Key Questions: Delivery
Where does the Mayor see the remaining 10,000 homes projected for the
period 2008-11 coming from?

Given indicative starts and current rates of completion, does the Mayor have
confidence in the levels of delivery already identified?

Will additional incentives be offered to those boroughs yet to agree a housing
target with the Mayor, has there been any progress on these negotiations
since the publication of the strategy?

What role does the Mayor see institutional investment in the private rented
sector playing? To what extent would he be looking to London boroughs to
play a part in funding a quasi-private market intervention?

How successful have shared ownership schemes been, is there scope for
moving towards a model of shared equity, can boroughs assist in this move?
Improving Homes
15. A commitment to reduce carbon emissions across the capital by 65 per cent by
2025 and for all publically funded housing developments to meet Code for
Sustainable Homes Level 3 by 2010 and Level 6 by 2016. A desire to see all
occupied homes in London achieve a SAP rating of at least 40 by 2016, with a
rating of 65 where possible.
16. A commitment to reduce the number of empty homes so that no more than one
percent of total housing stock should stand unused for more than six months. A
programme to bring long term empty homes back into use and targeted
investment to kick start stalled estate regeneration schemes.
17. A decision to develop a costed successor standard to the Decent Homes
standard, with clear targets for each of the recommended core areas to be
addressed by the new standard and a methodology for monitoring delivery of
these targets.
18. A commitment to produce a London Housing Design Guide which will set out
space and quality standards that will need to be complied with if developers wish
to access public grant or make use of publically-held assets such as London
Development Agency land.
19. The Guide will be launched for public consultation on 8 July and will offer specific
recommendations on:
o
o
o
o
o
o
Ensuring mixed communities: family housing at high density
Place-making: communal outdoor amenity space
Designing for arrival: secure by design; entrance to dwelling and public
realm
Space standards: private outdoor amenity space
Home as a place of retreat: light; ventilation; floor to ceiling heights
Climate change mitigation & adaptation: overheating; living roofs
20. Of particular interest, is the decision to recommend space-standards 10 per cent
above Parker Morris and the preclusion of single-aspect homes. It has been
suggested that through the revision of the London Plan the recommendations of
the Design Guide could eventually apply to all homes built in London.

Key Questions: Design
How will the Mayor reconcile developer resistance to increased size standards
with current housing market conditions and the ambitious affordable housing
delivery target?

Is there likely to be scope for an exemption from the Design Guide on
particular sites?

Will local authorities be able to set their own local design standards, when
building on their land, using locally raised funds?

Are we likely to see similar guidance mandating energy efficiency measures?

To what extent is the Mayor working with the Tenants Standard Authority on
linking any successor standard to the Decent Homes programme with the
wider regulation of social housing?
Maximising delivery, optimising value for money
21. A commitment to explore new delivery mechanisms with the HCA and to consider
the possible benefits of new investment models. The establishment of a
Community Land Trust Delivery Board and the identification of a suitable pilot
site.
22. A commitment to halve the number of households in temporary accommodation
by 2010 and to end rough sleeping, through the Rough Sleeping Delivery Board
by 2012.
23. A proposal to devolve housing delivery powers to London boroughs, to align
borough delivery activity with achieving the housing ambitions of the Mayor of
London. Given the potential implications of this suggestion, it is worth spending
some time exploring this issue.
24. Essentially, in exchange for agreeing to a currently undefined performance
framework, and to the Mayor’s affordable housing targets, London boroughs
would be granted a degree of delegated responsibility for budgets and housing
investment decisions within their area.
25. The offer of this kind of delegated responsibility is significant and significantly
different from the existing work the HCA is undertaking to allow local authorities
to directly own and manage properties within their area. It would potentially
enable boroughs to draw on their land assets, access to prudential borrowing and
Government resources provided through the HCA, to deliver against the strategic
priorities established by the GLA and the HCA London Board in a locally
accountable and locally controlled fashion.
26. The level of delegation potentially available is contingent on a variety of factors,
not least the current complexities around the conditions attached to each of the
funding streams which make up the Homes and Communities Agency’s available
investment capital. Because of these factors, full financial delegation may not be
possible until the next spending round: 2011/12.
27. Nevertheless, London Councils see this proposal as the key element within the
London Housing Strategy and would stress that borough engagement within this
discussion could substantially shape the housing delivery architecture of London
in the medium term.

Key Questions: Devolution
How much scope for devolution is actually on available, what is the Mayor
likely to ask from boroughs in order to take advantage of this offer?

What is Government’s view of this proposal, how does devolution to local
authorities fit with the role of the Homes and Communities Agency?

How does the proposed devolution of housing investment and delivery fit with
HCA’s ‘single conversation’?

To what extent would boroughs share in the management of ‘contractual risk’
with the Greater London Authority, would boroughs be able to retain the
financial benefits of local efficiencies?

When does the Mayor see this proposal becoming a reality, will boroughs be
consulted in detail as part of the development process?
Discussion and Next Steps
28. London Councils will draw on the discussion between Members of the Housing
Forum and use this to shape our response to the London Housing Strategy over
the summer. We are also intending to hold a high-level breakfast seminar on 21
July to explore the issue of devolution and will circulate Member concerns
appropriately.
29. Members are asked to consider the implications of the London Housing Strategy
and reflect that in adopting a more collegiate, consensual approach, the Mayor
has enabled boroughs to play an unprecedented role in shaping housing delivery
across London. London Councils would encourage active engagement on this
issue and stands ready to support Members in tackling questions which are likely
to have far reaching and significant consequences.
Equalities Implications
30. The London Housing Strategy is likely to have a significant impact on the
provision of housing, which will in turn impact on the social mobility and inclusion
of many sections of society, particularly the most vulnerable. Specifically,
increasing the supply of affordable housing and efforts to improve the quality of
existing stock have the potential to increase the quality of life and in turn raise
levels of participation for some of the most socially excluded.