Housing supply in London Westminster Hall, Wednesday 15 July 2015 (9.30am)

Debate initiated by Dr Rupa Huq This pack provides general background material relating to the subject of the debate.

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Subject specialist: Wendy Wilson, extn: 5615 Statistician: Richard Cracknell, extn: 4632 Contents A Newspaper articles 1

B Press releases 19

C PQs 25

D Other parliamentary material 30

E Further reading 31

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A Newspaper articles

Please note: the Library is not responsible for either the views or accuracy of external content. Inside Housing London 'needs 59,000 homes per year to meet demand' 14 July 2015 Pete Apps Housing conditions in London are ‘worsening at a much faster rate than the previous decade’, with 59,000 homes per year needed to meet demand. Research by academics at the London School of Economics, produced for housing association Family Mosaic, warned that a shortfall of 30,000 homes a year in London is ‘entirely plausible and may well be a major underestimate’. It recommended that housing associations consider encouraging tenants to move out of the capital ‘where appropriate’ and encourage downsizing. The report, The Future Housing Needs of London, seen exclusively by Inside Housing, found that if Londoners are to have the same housing conditions as 2011 in 2021, 59,000 homes must be built annually. This compares to the current rate of 24,000 per year, with the London Plan setting a target of 42,000 by the end of the decade. The report said that with ‘demand for much more affordable housing than could possibly be supplied’ the challenge is to make the best use of existing stock. The analysis suggests that younger households will face the biggest challenges, with many who have ‘not traditionally looked to social housing for help’ finding themselves in need. It suggests ‘encouraging moves out of London to locations and properties which make sense for the tenants concerned’ and building in locations away from London to house people who might otherwise have lived in the capital. It also suggests the sale of high value properties and joint ventures to increase investment programmes. © Ocean Media Group Ltd 2015 Inside Housing Commission begins first brownfield site list 13 July 2015 Emily Twinch An initial database of surplus brownfield land in London will be completed by the end of the year, it was announced at the first meeting of the London Land Commission today. Boris Johnson, the mayor of London, and housing minister Brandon Lewis officially launched the commission at a meeting attended by representatives from London Councils, NHS England, Transport for London and Network Rail.

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Savills has been enlisted to complete its preliminary list by the end of this year, which City Hall will then use to create a map to show the spread of public brownfield sites suitable for development across the city. The commission is believed to be the first co-ordinated effort to free up surplus public land in the capital and will work across layers of government and public bodies. It is launched after a series of planning reform announcements from the chancellor George Osborne last week, which included automatic planning permission given on all suitable brownfield sites. The aim is to identify sites for development and speed up its release while ensuring a good return for the taxpayer and better regeneration sites across London. Mr Johnson, who chairs the commission alongside the housing minister, said: ‘The London Land Commission will build on the great efforts we’ve already made at City Hall to ensure brownfield land that has laid empty for years is put to productive use in providing much-needed housing for Londoners. ‘In a city like ours, with its burgeoning population, it is simply madness not to act as quickly as we can to unlock more of these kinds of sites.’ The London Chamber of Commerce & Industry (LCCI) believes councils should be forced to supply data on surplus land to the new body, which was announced by chancellor George Osborne in February. © Ocean Media Group Ltd 2015 Inside Housing GLA director warns of impact of RTB on capital 26 June 2015 Corin Williams A senior director at City Hall in London has warned that some councils could be underestimating the impact of forced sales under the extended Right to Buy (RTB). David Lunts, executive director of housing and land at the Greater London Authority (GLA), said City Hall has done its own modelling of the impact of council sales in the capital, and as a result, he believes an estimate from former head of the civil service Lord Bob Kerslake that the policy will lead to London shedding around 5,000 council homes a year is ‘about right’. He added: ‘We’ve done some numbers and the boroughs have done some numbers, and those numbers don’t always correlate. ‘One of the problems is none of the boroughs have really got a very accurate up-to-date valuation of the stock. I think some of the high-value boroughs might be more affected than they currently realise.’ Mr Lunts said Conservative-led Kensington and Chelsea Council’s estimate that more than 110 homes could be sold each year based on the current level of voids ‘might be a bit light’. A Kensington and Chelsea spokesperson said: ‘The valuation information is taken from a desktop exercise conducted in 2014/15 and is based on the property archetype and area [ie postcode] and values taken from RTB sales in the previous year.

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‘However, until we see the final policy, we cannot make a full assessment of how great the impact will be.’ A number of Labour-led councils in London have claimed RTB will wipe out council housing in parts of the capital. Camden, Enfield, Haringey, and Islington have jointly estimated the policy will lead to 3,467 home sales over five years. Housing minister Brandon Lewis has said the Department for Communities and Local Government (DCLG) has not yet made an estimate of the number of the most expensive third of local authority properties that will become vacant each year. But the DCLG has admitted it holds figures estimating the overall cost of extending RTB to housing associations and has refused to release them publically. Inside Housing put a freedom of information request into the DCLG in an attempt to uncover the figures. The DCLG declined the request on 7 May, and Inside Housing appealed to the deparment. The DCLG is considering the appeal and has pledged to respond by 16 July. Meanwhile, Richard Blakeway, deputy mayor of London, told the Chartered Institute of Housing annual conference in Manchester on Thursday that the GLA is looking at increasing the use of compulsory purchase orders to deliver more housing. He said this would be part of a ‘proactive’ approach to land assembly. Mr Blakeway added: ‘Long-term regeneration is ultimately the place where I think we will move. It offers an incredibly exciting opportunity.’ He said that 29 out of 32 London boroughs were using GLA finance to build. In numbers: How Right to Buy could affect London 210,000 Number of homes Conservatives initially estimated could be sold 5,000 Annual number of homes in London Lord Kerslake estimates will be sold £5bn Amount that could flow out of London as a result, according to Lord Kerslake 110 Number of sales a year Kensington and Chelsea is expecting © Ocean Media Group Ltd 2015 FT.com June 17, 2015 Ex civil service chief to examine London housing shortage Jim Pickard and Kate Allen The former head of the civil service has invoked the spirit of postwar Britain as he launched an inquiry into how to revive mass housebuilding in London.

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The shortage of affordable housing in the capital has become a major political issue and is a growing concern for employers. Business groups say the high cost of property has damaged recruitment, forced wages up and affected workers' productivity by forcing them into long commutes. Lord Bob Kerslake is chairing a new commission for the Institute of Public Policy Research, a left-leaning think-tank, to examine the problem. He said the failure to build enough homes had been "the biggest public policy failure of the past 50 years". The average house price in London is £498,000 - up by a third since 2007 - driving home ownership to ever lower levels. In a decade, the number of private renters in London has doubled from 14 to 30 per cent. Lord Kerslake, who joined the House of Lords in March, was until recently the head of the civil service and the permanent secretary at the communities department. During the last parliament, the coalition government changed planning policy to increase the emphasis on development and on local decisions. The Conservative party made several housing promises in their election manifesto, including selling 200,000 homes to first-time buyers at a 20 per cent discount to the market price and continuing the Help to Buy scheme that subsidises buyers. Lord Kerslake, who now chairs Peabody, a housing association, used his first house of lords speech to criticise the government's plan to extend the "Right to Buy" policy for council houses to housing association tenants. He questioned ministers' claims that housing association homes sold under Right to Buy would be replaced on a one-for-one basis - funded by the sale of expensive council houses. "It's not going to happen," he said. All of the main parties had promised to increase housebuilding in their election manifestos, the peer said. "We ought to be able to find common ground on how this should be handled and that has happened in the past, for example in the postwar period there was a consensus on housebuilding," he said. "I don't think it is impossible to come up with a consensus across the political parties today." Lord Kerslake said that when he first worked in London, people newly working in professional jobs could buy a home: now the typical first-time-buyer needs a salary of £77,000. The commission, which will report in March, will seek to develop a plan to double the number of new homes built in London to about 50,000 a year. The other commission members are Mark Clare, outgoing chief executive of Barratt Homes, Terrie Alafat, chief executive of the Chartered Institute for Housing, Rebecca Tunstall from the University of York and Nick Walkley, chief executive of Haringey Council. Lord Kerslake said London was building less than half the homes it needed to sustain its growing population: 18,000 last year against the necessary 49,000.

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The net number of new homes - taking into account demolitions and Right to Buy sales - is only 13,585, according to figures published by City Hall earlier this year. "Londoners are missing out on opportunities: delaying having families, being forced to rent for longer and many are locked out of home ownership completely," he said. It was also a threat to London's international competitiveness, he said. "If it becomes too expensive to live in London, why would businesses come here? . . . The place will suffer." He did not set out his prescription for the problem but indicated that fiscal devolution would have a role. The commission will also look at building heights, public infrastructure, transport links and development on the fringes of the city. Some critics have argued that London has grown too large and that improving housing and transport will just draw in even more people. Lord Kerslake said it would take several years of increased housebuilding before there was any impact on prices. "It would be nice to say if we had three years of more supply we'd change the prices but I don't want to delude people." He also said he did not believe a city with better infrastructure would simply "fill up". "We need to plan for growth in London because that seems to be the almost inevitable reality, looking at the demographics," he said. "I don't know if I can say what the maximum size for London would be or even that you could realistically expect to limit its size." Copyright 2015 The Financial Times Ltd. All Rights Reserved FT.com June 17, 2015 Low-cost London housing being stymied by government, says critic Kate Allen

London's efforts to build homes that are affordable to low-income households are being stymied by government policies on home ownership and regeneration.

The construction of new homes in the capital is struggling to keep up with the loss of homes through the Right To Buy scheme and housing estate demolitions, official figures show.

Sales of homes to council tenants through Right To Buy and estate redevelopments are undermining London mayor Boris Johnson's efforts to increase the supply of new subsidised homes in the capital, according to critics.

Mr Johnson has financed the construction of 43,220 new subsidised homes since he took office in 2008. But the net increase was just 13,585, according to figures released by City Hall to Green Party politician Darren Johnson.

Mr Johnson - a London Assembly member - will raise the issue on Wednesday during the mayor's monthly question and answer session.

More than 16,000 homes were sold to their tenants between 2008 and 2014 through Right To Buy.

There is no official data on housing demolitions but a report by the London Assembly published earlier this year estimated that in the 10 years to 2014 the redevelopment

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schemes that had received planning permission would result in the net loss of 6,510 low-rent homes, if all the projects went ahead.

The Green Party's Mr Johnson said the new Conservative government's housing policies were likely to exacerbate the situation.

Housing minister Brandon Lewis last week called for more of London's housing estates to be knocked down and rebuilt, while the government's plans to roll out Right To Buy to housing association tenants have been widely criticised for the risk that the homes sold will not be replaced.

"The mayor frequently talks of the new homes built for low-income Londoners, but never mentions the existing homes being sold and demolished," Mr Johnson said, adding that "the small net increase in social housing is dramatically failing to meet the growing need".

"With Right To Buy for housing associations on the horizon, and talk of more estate regeneration to come, we could see a large net loss of social housing in a city with a rapidly growing population," he warned.

Gavin Smart, deputy chief executive of the Chartered Institute of Housing, said that new lettings by London social landlords had dropped by 19 per cent in the last five years, "which indicates that supply is simply not keeping pace with demand".

"Councils are finding it difficult to replace the homes sold [through Right To Buy] - so in the long term affordable housing is being lost," he said.

But, Mr Smart added that sometimes short-term loss of sub-market housing through estate demolition could be reversed in the longer term through redevelopment.

"We should not assume that every home demolished represents a permanent loss," he said. "Some schemes will actually contain more affordable housing [than what was there before]."

The Greater London Authority says that London needs 42,000 new homes a year; last year it saw the construction of 21,370.

A spokesman for the mayor said Mr Johnson had "overseen a net increase in the number of homes available for social rent".

"The mayor has been clear that new policies to reinvigorate Right To Buy must deliver an overall increase in housebuilding in London and that all the money generated from selling London homes is retained in the capital to help increase the supply of new homes, particularly affordable homes," he said.

Copyright The Financial Times Ltd. All rights reserved. Please do not cut and paste FT articles and redistribute by email or post to the web. Copyright 2015 The Financial Times Ltd. All Rights Reserved FT.com June 14, 2015 Sidebar: London faces council housing wipeout Kate Allen and Jim Pickard

Labour has accused the Tory government of "social cleansing" in central London by forcing councils to sell off their most expensive homes as they fall vacant in the coming years.

Local authorities will be forced to dispose of their most valuable residential properties to pay for an extension of the "Right to Buy" scheme to housing associations.

Savills, the property agency, estimates that most of the proceeds from local authority property sales will come from London: £2.5bn out of the £3.2bn likely to be raised each year.

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Nearly two-thirds of all council houses in Kensington and Chelsea are eligible for sale, along with almost half of those in Westminster. Selling those homes would raise more than half a billion pounds in revenue, Savills' modelling suggests.

Because it has a larger amount of council housing and higher vacancy rates, Camden council's expensive stock could raise a similar sum through sales.

The sales would take many years to complete, however, given the low rate of vacancies in these areas.

Sadiq Khan, MP for Tooting - who is vying to be Labour mayor of London - has criticised the proposals.

"One of the reasons why London is better than Paris and New York is that our inner cities are diverse," he said.

"Families of all different backgrounds live there. If councils are forced to sell a third of the most expensive council properties, inner cities will be hollowed out, which will lead to social cleansing."

London business leaders and social campaigners have warned that the spiralling cost of housing in the capital is a threat to its economic success.

Chris Buckle, Savills' associate director, said that about 10 per cent of all English council homes were among the 30 per cent most expensive properties in their local areas - the government's proposed criterion for selling them. But this "varies wildly across the country", he said.

Other areas of the country could lose out, he added, because it is not clear "whether [sales receipts] will remain within local authorities where sales are made".

"This will be of particular concern in parts of the South West and East Midlands, where receipts in many local authorities are likely to be very limited, while some within the same regions will see some level of right to buy which will need to be funded," he said,

Greg Clark, communities secretary, insisted that the government would ensure that replacement homes would be built in the same communities as those that were sold.

"I certainly respect and celebrate the diversity of our cities. It is an essential part of their character," he said.

In reality, however, any replacement properties could take years to build. In recent years the government has failed to replace properties sold under the old "Right to Buy" scheme - which applied to council housing only - on a "like-for-like" basis. Copyright 2015 The Financial Times Ltd. All Rights Reserved Independent.co.uk June 11, 2015 Thursday 3:49 PM GMT London boroughs are building homes outside the capital because they've run out of room; A Westminster councillor said: 'We cannot meet all our housing needs within the city's boundaries' Louis Doré

The housing shortage in London is now so chronic that borough councils are planning to build homes outside the capital as "there isn't enough space."

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Westminster City Council's draft housing strategy outlines plans to partner with other councils and build homes outside the capital, in an attempt to keep up with demand for affordable housing.

Westminster's plan outlines that it hopes to work with other town halls to develop properties outside of London, "helping address London's chronic housing shortage."

Councillor Daniel Astaire, cabinet member for housing, regeneration, business and economic development, said: "We cannot meet all our housing needs within the city's boundaries - there isn't enough space and what there is is among the most expensive in the UK.

"Pressure on housing in central London is unprecedented and enormous. No one local authority acting alone can solve this very complex problem.

"We will take a lead in working with other boroughs and the mayor to develop some fresh ideas and I hope this draft strategy will start the debate."

The most expensive and the cheapest locations to rent in the UK

An investigation by The Independent in April found that more than 50,000 families were silently shipped out of London boroughs in the past three years.

Wandsworth Borough Council was also recently accused of "social cleansing" after a letter encouraging tenants to move from London to Birmingham was shared by hundreds of people on social media.

Read more:Over 50,000 families shipped out of London boroughs in the past three yearsThe one figure that shows the scale of London's housing crisisAverage house prices in London to hit £1 million by 2030

The letter told the recipient that the council would pay the tenant/s for "bedrooms given up", as well as helping with the cost of moving, and was alleged to have targeted pensioners in particular, due to their exemption from the bedroom tax.

Cllr Astaire said: "We are a council of action, not words. This year we'll lay foundations for 350 new homes as part of an investment of over £60 million to provide more high quality homes. We can, and will, do more." Copyright 2015 Independent Digital News and Media Limited All Rights Reserved FT.com June 10, 2015 Wednesday 4:48 PM GMT Knock down London council estates, says housing minister Kate Allen

Housing minister Brandon Lewis has called for the demolition and redevelopment of council estates across London in a move which he said would help boost the supply of new homes in the capital.

In his first official speech since being reappointed as a minister at the communities department after the election, Mr Lewis said that politicians "cannot overlook the need to regenerate inner city areas" which are "dominated by high rise concrete blocks from the 1960s and 70s".

The recent redevelopment of London's Haggerston estate in Hackney - now called City Mills - and Packington estate in Islington are "fantastic examples of how these concrete blocks can be torn down and replaced with streets", he said.

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Mr Lewis's call echoes that of senior Labour figure Lord Adonis, who before the general election published a research paper arguing that councils are some of the biggest land owners in London and should be encouraged to make more efficient use of their holdings.

Local authorities should knock down existing council housing on valuable brownfield land in order to build "mixed communities" that would function as "city villages", Lord Adonis said. This would increase the population density on sites and create a net increase in housing without needing any funding from the state, his report for the Institute for Public Policy Research argued.

Lord Adonis's remarks upset some housing campaigners who argue that the price of homes on new development sites is too high for many of those who currently live on council estates.

Speaking at the London Real Estate Forum property conference in Mayfair on Wednesday, Mr Lewis pointed out that although London's population topped its previous 1939 all-time high earlier this year, inner London boroughs still house fewer people than they did in the prewar period - owing in part to relatively low densities on housing estates.

The government has allocated £150m to help fund plans for the redevelopment of London estates. Mr Lewis said: "Completely rebuilding these estates will provide more homes and commercial space for the same amount of land."

Mr Lewis also announced £252m of funding to build 1,353 new homes for rent in London. The cash comes from the government's Build To Rent fund, taking the total spent so far to £464m.

The homes will be spread across three sites in Southwark, west London and the Olympic Village in Stratford.

In a nod to the Conservative party's drive to liberalise the planning regime, Mr Lewis also signalled that he was looking for new ways to free small housebuilders from excessive regulation.

The government has "no big plans" for "surprise changes" to the national planning framework, but developers wanting to create up to five homes on small sites outside London - for example at the edge of villages and suburbs - should face a quicker, simpler planning regime, he said.

However, this should not undermine the quality of architectural design of new homes, Mr Lewis added. When "ugly concrete boxes" are built, "then it is no surprise that [local people] oppose the next development that comes along".

Copyright The Financial Times Ltd. All rights reserved. Please do not cut and paste FT articles and redistribute by email or post to the web. Copyright 2015 The Financial Times Ltd. All Rights Reserved The Guardian May 15, 2015 How will a Conservative government affect housing in London?; The Tories won with a promise to help people buy a home, but with London's booming house prices they may be less helpful than they thought Richard Brown

Housing was a far bigger issue in the 2015 general election manifestos than in 2010, and generated some of the campaign's most controversial policy proposals. This reflects a growing public sense of crisis, and the combination of rising prices and slow construction that is particularly toxic in London, where the average house cost 11 times average earnings in 2014 (compared to seven times nationwide).

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It is no surprise then that polling by Ipsos Mori shows that 28% of Londoners see housing as a top issue facing Britain today, compared with 13% nationwide. Housing is also not such a big issue for Conservative voters, and London is an increasingly Labour city, so will it remain high on the to-do list - and how will policies affect London?

Related: Street-chart: London's housing crisis illustrated - in pictures

The Conservative manifesto pledged to build 200,000 discounted starter homes for first-time buyers, to establish help-to-buy Isa savings accounts and to give housing association tenants the right to buy their homes. But London's house and land prices are so high these policies will have least impact on the housing crisis in the city where it is most acute.

Help-to-buy take up has been much lower in London to date, and the new help-to-buy Isa has a maximum savings limit of £12,000, which will make only a small dent in affordability when London first-time buyer deposits are as high as £50,000.

The extension of right to buy could cost London the most, while benefitting it least. The National Housing Federation estimates that only 15% of London housing association tenants would be able to afford to buy their property, compared with 35% in northern England. But these discounted sales will be cross-subsidised by sales of the most expensive council houses, which will raise most cash in London (though high replacement costs will reduce the amount raised).

Whether boosting demand will boost supply is much debated, but the manifesto made some proposals about supply too. Measures to encourage use of brownfield and public sector land will be important in London, though much brownfield land in London is already allocated. Building on the green belt seems to be prohibited, while new garden cities will only be built where these are "locally led" (which probably rules them out in much of south-east England).

The impact of these measures may be limited in London, and parliamentary time dominated by other issues, but the coming state of constitutional flux offers an opportunity. Thanks to fixed-term parliaments, we know which party will be in government in early 2020. But we are a lot foggier about what they will be governing: a United Kingdom standing apart from its European neighbours; a loose federation of resurgent nation states; or an uneasy and asymmetric patchwork of provinces?

If all this is on the table, then housing in London must be. If the national prescription doesn't work in London, then the next mayor should make the case for something that does; not for special treatment, but for more powers, resources and flexibility - to build more, better and faster.

London boroughs are starting to build again, and should be less restricted in borrowing against future revenue streams (including rent). The mayor should be able to establish more housing zones and development corporations to build homes using public land.

There is also a case to be made for pooling developers' affordable housing payments across London to support a London-wide programme for affordable housing. The next mayor may also want to encourage higher densities in outer London, or push to look again at London's green belt, and ask where releasing land (perhaps under public sector control) might provide more housing and more enjoyable green space.

Many of these solutions are highly interventionist and some would be controversial but it is hard to build the housing needed in a city like London without putting some noses out of joint. Mayors can do that. The political complexion of the incumbent should not make a difference; whatever the capital's voting patterns, its housing crisis cannot be allowed to strangle growth. Candidates for mayor in 2016 will vie to demonstrate that they understand the urgency of the crisis, and are committed to action. Housing could be the big issue in the next mayoral campaign; it is in everyone's interest for the winner to be given the powers and resources to deliver on their promises.

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Richard Brown is director of research at the Centre for London Copyright 2015 The Guardian, a division of Transcontinental Media Group Inc. All Rights Reserved Financial Times (London, England) May 12, 2015 Tuesday Brownfield data holding back housing development, study says; London sites Barney Thompson

Half of London's local authorities have little or no idea how much brownfield land they own, even though such sites could help to solve the capital's chronic housing shortage, according to a new report.

A new organisation called the London Land Commission was announced in February and given a £1m budget to create a register of commercial and industrial public sector land that could be redeveloped.

But during its own attempt to compile such a register, the London Chamber of Commerce and Industry (LCCI) found a large "information gap . . . which could cripple the [commission]".

The last count of local authority brownfield land in London was done in 2010 and only 45 per cent of boroughs provided information.

In order to update this information, the LCCI issued freedom of information requests to each borough. Fifteen of 32 either failed to respond or said they did not have the information. Another three said they had no brownfield land while seven more said they had only general land and asset data.

Colin Stanbridge, chief executive of the LCCI, said: "Little action can be taken by the London Land Commission until it has at least a basic understanding of the brownfield land owned by local councils." He added: "The commission must be given powers to compel local authorities to play ball." At present, there is no statutory duty for boroughs to keep a record of the brownfield sites they possess.

House prices in London are now nine times the average earnings of first-time buyers. Demand is highest for midmarket housing but developers have been criticised for focusing on luxury accommodation .

Richard Blakeway, deputy mayor for housing, said the land commission was still being set up but would begin work in the next few weeks. It would be chaired by a government minister and the mayor, he added.

Mr Blakeway stopped short of backing the call for boroughs to be compelled to provide information, saying there was already a "partial picture" because the assets of bodies such as the Greater London Authority and, to a lesser extent, the NHS were mapped out.

"Many local authorities are already looking at developing their assets and we are talking to a number of boroughs keen to map what they own," he said. There were "huge incentives" to cooperate with the commission, he added, such as improving procurement and generating more income.

Brownfield sites are seen as crucial to alleviating London's housing shortage. The mayor's target is for 42,000 new homes a year for the next 20 years but at the moment it is thought fewer than half that are being completed.

Large sites such as Battersea Power Station and Old Oak Common are attractive to big developers but one objective of the brownfield survey would be to identify sites that could be taken on by smaller companies if development was made simpler.

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The LCCI spoke to Pocket Living, a developer specialising in small sites in London, which said it had found acquiring public land could take four times as long as private land, even if the intention was to build affordable housing. Copyright 2015 The Financial Times Ltd. All Rights Reserved The Guardian May 12, 2015 Tuesday 9:03 AM GMT £800m shortfall on social housing in London since 2011 revealed; Proportion of homes started each year in capital that are affordable has halved after cut in social housing subsidy, says Estates Gazette George Arnett

Developers have paid £800m less than they should have done towards social housing in London since 2011, according to new analysis.

Between 2004 and 2011, 74 social homes were built for every 100 private newbuilds. By 2014, the figure had fallen to 40 per 100.

The market intelligence group Estates Gazette, which carried out the analysis, argues that the shortfall is partially due to a 60% cut in social housing subsidy in the last government's 2010 spending review.

Nadia Elghamry, data editor at Estates Gazette, said: "Historically, 75 affordable homes have been built for every 100 private units, but since the spending review in 2010 which saw a Tory-led government policy slash the housing subsidy by 60%, it has dropped substantially.

"Now just 40 social homes are built for every 100. That means at a time when starts on private homes in London have reached a two-decade high, we have seen the proportion of expected affordable housing nearly halve. The theory was that cash contributions paid by developers rather than physically building homes on site should have plugged this gap. They have not."

To have kept the same ratio of social to private newbuilds at 2004-11 levels, an additional 17,297 social units should have been started since 2012.

Between 2011 and 2013, developers paid out nearly £467m towards provision for social housing rather than building the homes themselves.

The Estates Gazette report estimates that £1.3bn would have been needed to cover the cost of those missing 17,297 homes. This is based on the assumption that the cost of building a London housing unit is £72,500, which does not include the cost of buying land.

The money put towards social housing provision by developers is part of what is known as section 106 (S106) funding. Under this measure, the requirement for a proportion of homes to be social units is waived in exchange for a monetary contribution to the local authority covering the area where the development is being built.

Between 2004 and 2010, 70 developments contained an S106 agreement where the money was supposed to be directed towards social housing. Following the coalition government's spending review, the number increased to 79 in both 2012 and 2013 and 88 in 2014.

"Simply put, even when assuming no land cost, S106 contributions have not been enough to mitigate the loss in either on- or off-site affordable housing provision", the report states.

Campbell Robb, the chief executive of Shelter, said: "Only clear rules on how many affordable homes must be built will turn the tide on this worrying trend. Up until 2008, there was a 50% affordable housing target for new developments in London and more genuinely affordable homes were built as a result. There's no reason this can't work again.

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"Both the mayor and central government need to reinstate clear rules for developers on affordable housebuilding and finally start to curb London's drastic shortage. If they don't, ordinary Londoners face being priced out of the city altogether." Copyright 2015 The Guardian, a division of Transcontinental Media Group Inc. All Rights Reserved Inside Housing Fall in affordable homes built in London 13 April 2015 Heather Spurr The proportion of affordable homes completed in London has dropped to a six-year low, official figures suggest. Statistics released by the Greater London Authority (GLA) in March reveal that 6,592 affordable homes were completed in the capital in 2013/14 - 28% of overall new housing. This is the lowest number of affordable homes built in London since 2005/6 - when 24% of new homes were affordable. The figures were gathered from a number of London Plan Annual Monitoring Reports dating back to 2006, which aim to get a snapshot of the affordable housing provision across all the boroughs in the capital. In 2013/14, the supply of affordable completions fell while the total level of conventional completions rose, meaning the share of affordable housing fell from 35% the previous year to 28%. Tom Chance, Green Party’s national housing spokesperson, said: ‘These figures show that Boris Johnson is going ever-deeper into the pockets of big developers and investors. ‘London needs a mayor that will get tough on affordable housing requirements, and a government that will invest billions in the social housing we need.’ Affordable housing in London is defined as social rent, affordable rent (up to 80% of market rent) and ‘intermediate housing’,including shared ownership homes. In the three years to 2013/14, 23,138 affordable properties have been built in London - 34% of the total number of new homes. The GLA said the decline in affordable housing completions between 2012 and 2014 was due to the need to renegotiate deals agreed with developers before the economic crisis. It added that these renegotiatons were required to make sure the schemes remained economically viable. A spokesperson for the Boris Johnson, the London mayor, said: ‘The mayor’s target of delivering 100,000 affordable homes remains on track and new figures, which will include thousands of new homes built over the last twelve months are expected to become available this week.’ © Ocean Media Group Ltd 2015

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24DASH.COM Housing now biggest concern for Londoners Tuesday 3rd March 2015 Housing is now the most important issue for Londoners, a poll has revealed. The 2014 London Survey found that housing is the capital’s chief concern, with 87% of people agreeing that more homes are needed. In 2011 the survey found that the top priorities were education, crime and policing. Londoners are also highly concerned about the cost of living, with 92% of those who responded to the survey claiming that it has gone up in the last year. The top 11 priorities in order of levels of concern for Londoners are: 1.Housing 2.Cost of living 3.Population growth 4.Jobs and unemployment 5.Transport 6.Health Services 7.Environment 8.Policing and public safety 9.Economy 10.Education 11.Regeneration Revealing the results, mayor Boris Johnson said: “Overall, I’m pleased that satisfaction levels are generally high, but these findings show that many people remain anxious about housing and the economic outlook. I understand these concerns, which is why this year alone, more affordable homes are being built than in any other year since the early 1980s. I am stimulating house building with a range of pioneering new policies, including 20 new housing zones to help fast track delivery of new homes, and a housing bank to make long term low cost loans available for new affordable homes. I have also recently set out with the government a plan to secure London’s prosperity in the coming years, including the delivery of new jobs and homes.” © 2015 24publishing FT February 24, 2015 Review green belt rules to ease London housing crisis, says study Barney Thompson London’s local authorities should review the rules protecting green belt land round the city and allow homes to be built in some areas to help ease the housing crisis, according to a new report. While brownfield sites — disused industrial or commercial land — are “the first and best option” for development, many are “complex, poorly connected and costly to develop”, says the report, co-authored by business lobby group London First, planning consultancy Quod and Paul Cheshire of the London School of Economics.

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“Londoners should be able to get greater value from the green space that surrounds them. This can be achieved in a way that also sees a limited amount of green belt land used to accommodate more homes.” London is thought to need about 50,000 new homes every year to keep pace with its rising population, which reached its highest level of 8.6m this month. However, last year fewer than 20,000 homes were built. Boris Johnson, mayor of London, has ruled out building on green belt land until at least 2025, saying brownfield sites should provide sufficient land for development. Last week the mayor and George Osborne, chancellor, set a target for 400,000 new homes in the capital by 2025. Of the land lying within the area of the Greater London Authority, which is the focus of the report, 22 per cent is designated green belt, or about 35,000 hectares. About a quarter of that is public access or environmentally protected land, while about three-fifths is used for agriculture. The rest has a variety of uses, from airfields to water treatment works and old hospitals. Golf courses, for instance, comprise 7.1 per cent of London green belt, or about 2,500ha, while 2 per cent is made up of houses and roads that had already been built when the London green belt was designated — a process that began in 1938. “London has a huge and diverse range of parks, habitats and — even inside the GLA — lovely countryside. This should be firmly protected,” said Mr Cheshire, who is a professor of economic geography at the LSE. The report does not give specific examples of locations where houses should be built but says 42 per cent of the green belt is not parkland, or environmentally protected or open to public access and is within 2km of a rail or tube station. It is “a limited amount” of this category that should be considered, the report says. “But the truth is that green belt land covers a range of uses. There is beautiful countryside with public access but there is also a lot of intensive arable and semi-derelict land. Golf courses — just in the GLA — cover an area almost twice as big as the borough of Kensington and Chelsea.” Barney Stringer, director of Quod, said the existing London green belt varied “from the beautiful and precious to the frankly underused and inaccessible . . . if we want to protect the quality of London for the growing number of people who live [there], then we cannot continue to rule out sensible reviews of the green belt boundaries”. Part of the justification for green belt zones is to stop urban sprawl and the merging of towns and villages so that development is concentrated in existing built-up areas. The report says this principle makes less sense for London — the country has 13 other green belt areas — because the city evolved from a collection of villages. The report throws up some surprising statistics. While people think of London as “the epicentre of concrete in the UK”, said Mr Cheshire, the total volume of land classed as

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“green” — including gardens, parks and green belt — outstrips land that is built on by a ratio of more than two to one. Fourteen London boroughs have more land designated as green belt than is built on for housing; two of them, Bromley and Havering, are more than half green belt land. Paul Miner of the Campaign to Protect Rural England said: “A common theme of organisations making this argument is that they significantly undervalue the green belt, both as protected land and as a policy to prevent urban sprawl.” He added that the Natural Capital Committee, a government advisory body, recently called for an increase in the UK’s woodlands and wetlands. “The only way to do that is to keep the green belt rather than significantly deregulate policy,” he said. Copyright 2015 The Financial Times Ltd. All Rights Reserved Inside Housing Greater London Authority reveals 26,500-home plan 10 February 2015 Pete Apps City Hall has today announced plans to build 26,500 new homes along the eastern part of the River Thames in London. Draft guidance has set out planning, regeneration and design advice for an ‘opportunity area’ stretching over a 12km area in east London and Essex. The plan suggests transport improvements, including an extension of the London Overground – first tipped by Inside Housing – and new river crossings. Sir Edward Lister, deputy mayor for planning at the Greater London Authority, said: ‘London Riverside can deliver genuinely affordable high quality housing for Londoners in a fantastic Thameside setting.’ Much of the land in the London Riverside is already in the [London] mayor’s ownership and the framework also recommends speeding up the development of publicly owned land assets to deliver the jobs and homes the city needs. A spokesperson for the GLA said it was ‘too early’ to give a specific level of affordable housing, but the guidance set out an aim to increase ‘intermediate housing… in particular shared ownership’. © Ocean Media Group Ltd 2015 Inside Housing Boris launches £220m package for low cost home ownership 5 January 2015 Pete Apps Boris Johnson has launched a radical deposit free home ownership product in London, as part of a £220m package of loans to build 6,000 low-cost homes.

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In a move, exclusively revealed by Inside Housing last month, Mr Johnson today announced £40m of loan finance to launch the ‘Genie’ product, developed by housing association Gentoo, in the capital. The product, which has been developed in the north east, allows buyers to build up equity in their home over 30 years, without ever taking out a mortgage or paying a deposit. Under the scheme 2,000 homes will be offered in London over 10 years. Mr Johnson also launched The Mayor’s First Steps Challenge Fund, which will offer £180m of loans to ‘accelerate’ the building of 4,000 shared ownership homes by 2020. City Hall rivals said the schemes were a ‘drop in the ocean’ and criticised them for being unaffordable. The Mayor made the announcements today as he visited Erith Park in Bexley, a 343-home regeneration project developed by the Orbit Group of which 80 per cent will be ‘affordable’. ‘Shared ownership is crucial in helping the unprecedented numbers of people in London desperate for good quality low cost housing,’ said Mr Johnson. So far 88 families have used the Genie Home Purchase Plan in the north east of England, with today’s announcement marking the first time it has been offered in London. It is anticipated the first properties will be on the market later this year. Tom Copley, housing spokesperson for the London Labour group, said the announcement was a ‘drop in the ocean compared with what London is crying out for’. ‘I hope that this truly is new money and not the mayor funding this project by cutting other affordable housing budgets,’ he said. Last month, Inside Housing revealed housing associations were pulling away from shared ownership in inner London, causing Mr Copley to question the sense of using government funds to support it. Darren Johnson, London Assembly member for the Green Party, said the loans were a ‘cover for huge cuts to the housing budget’. He said shared ownership had become unaffordable in parts of London, with some schemes requiring a minimum income of £64,000 and a maximum of £66,000. © Ocean Media Group Ltd 2015 Inside Housing London Housing Strategy signed off by government 31 October 2014 By Pete Apps Boris Johnson’s flagship housing strategy to build 42,000-homes per year in London has been formally approved by government. The strategy involves building 17,000 homes per year, with 5,000 specifically for the private rented sector (PRS).

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It comprises a number of interventions- including the creation of a housing bank, housing zones and the mayor’s housing covenant. In a letter sent out widely by City Hall yesterday, Richard Blakeway, the deputy mayor for housing, said: ‘The mayor wants the affordable housing system to reward those who make this city a success, as well as continuing to provide a crucial safety net for the most disadvantaged. To achieve the aims of the strategy, all organisations that have a stake in its success must play their part. The mayor, the boroughs, the government, developers and businesses, housing associations and charities; all have a role to play.’ The strategy was finalised in June following extensive consultation, after being approved by the Greater London Authority (GLA) in April. The news comes as the GLA announce a major PRS deal in south London. © Ocean Media Group Ltd 2014

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B Press releases

London Housing Commission Updated Jul 2015 http://www.ippr.org/london-housing-commission The aim of the London Housing Commission is to decipher evidence and produce a clear programme of action for London's housing market Our capital city faces unprecedented challenges in housing its citizens. Double-digit annual inflation has resulted in house prices that are now one-third higher than they were before the financial crisis. With no corresponding improvement in people's incomes, or expansion in supply to curb price inflation, affordability problems are deepening and mortgage debt-to-income ratios are rising rapidly. Such forces create severe consequences elsewhere: rising rents, stubborn levels of housing-induced poverty, and homelessness. Now fully 25 per cent of the housing benefit bill is absorbed by renters in the capital. Providing enough secure, affordable and decent housing is one of the biggest challenges facing our nation, and at present we are falling short. The Strategic London Housing Market Assessment has estimated that the London housing market needs at least 49,000 additional homes per year to house the growing population and meet the severe backlog that weak development has allowed to develop. Last year, only 18,700 were delivered. The capital needs a radical strategy to solve its deep housing problems. IPPR has been at the forefront of exploring new ideas and policies for tackling the housing crisis, and with the challenges most acute in London, this project will establish a four-member commission of experts and supply them with detailed market analysis and policy research, to facilitate the development of a radical portfolio of solutions to the London housing crisis. The London Housing Commission will address the following key questions: •How can we double the delivery of homes in London every year, and maintain high levels of housing delivery in the long term? •How can we reconnect the costs of home ownership and renting to incomes in London? •How can we provide a high quality private rented sector? London Housing Commission The London Housing Commission: A call for evidence 7 Jul 2015 http://www.ippr.org/files/publications/pdf/LHC-call-for-evidence_Jul2015.pdf?noredirect=1

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DCLG Housing Minister Brandon Lewis speaks to the London Real Estate Forum about the housing market. June 2015 (Original script, may differ from delivered version) https://www.gov.uk/government/speeches/brandon-lewis-speaks-at-the-london-real-estate-forum The 19th-century Conservative Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli once described London as a roost for every bird. He’d be pleased to learn his observation had turned into prophecy. Because 150 years later birds are still flocking to this great city, and the roost is still growing. London is the most visited city in the world. A cultural and economic powerhouse that no other city can match. It’s also a magnet for domestic and international talent. Earlier this year the population reached 8.6 million, passing its 1939 peak earlier than experts predicted. That number is expected to rise to 9 million by 2020, and 10 million by 2030. Such phenomenal strength can sometimes provoke fear and antipathy, but that’s wrong. London’s success should be celebrated, not resented. Emulated, not contained. But we must also recognise London’s success poses unique challenges for its future. Chief among these is the extraordinary pressure being placed on the capital’s housing stock. There is only one way this increased pressure on the capital can be relieved, and that is by building more homes. Foreign investment Of course, the strength of London’s property market means new homes will attract foreign buyers wanting to invest. All developers must now market new properties here in the UK first – but the last thing we would want to do is introduce illiberal, protectionist measures that would strangle investment in the market. Such a move wouldn’t just restrict home ownership – it was jeopardise the capital’s status as a world-class city, to the detriment of all Londoners. Decentralisation Boosting housing supply will be a challenge for London for decades to come, and it’s one this government believes is best met by people who run London and are accountable to Londoners.

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That’s why during the last parliament we transferred significant powers from the government’s national housing agency, the Homes and Communities Agency, to the Greater London Authority. At the time it was seen as a major change to the status quo. Today it is simply one of the vanguards of decentralisation, and a symbol of an ever-strengthening consensus in British politics and society. The belief that more power should be released from Whitehall and given to local areas, and local people, whether to encourage house building, boost economic growth, or provide better public services. This government will help create the new Northern Powerhouse, and I have no doubt northern cities will be looking to the capital and elsewhere for inspiration. But it won’t be to Whitehall, it will be to London itself, which has already demonstrated what can be achieved when real power is put into the hands of local people. The Mayor has already demonstrated that these new powers are being well used, setting an ambitious target to deliver at least 42,000 new homes each year. That figure has not been reached under any government since the 1930s, and would represent a near doubling of average annual output compared to the last decade. The Mayor now has the power to establish Development Corporations and Mayoral Development Orders, to speed up the delivery of large-scale developments across the city. Take Old Oak Common in West London, a stone’s throw from Paddington Station. Thanks to the new Mayoral Development Corporation that area will have a new lease of life with plans for 24,000 homes and up 55,000 jobs. Those homes will be in a prime location when another major project, Crossrail, comes to fruition. Big schemes like this enjoy positive coverage and publicity. But often the media paint a negative and simplistic picture of the property market in London. The reality is that progress is already being made. More homes are being built in the capital across every tenure. New build completions in London rose to 18,700 in 2014, up 13% on the year before. More importantly, figures from the Home Builders Federation show that 47,650 homes were granted planning approval on schemes of more than 10 units in 2014. That’s a full 43% higher than 2013, and the highest annual total since the data started being collected in 2008. The Mayor has also committed to deliver 100,000 affordable homes over his two terms. Almost 94,000 have already been provided.

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Last year we provided the GLA with £1.1 billion because 2014 to 2015 saw the highest number of affordable homes delivered since current recorded stats began in 1991. The GLA believes it’s probably the highest annual total for 34 years. That’s money well spent. Government action While the primary role of the government is to support the Mayor’s plans for housing, we will also continue to channel financial investment towards London’s housing, while balancing the needs of the capital with the rest of the country. In the early days of the last government we launched the Get Britain Building fund – investment targeted at getting workers back on stalled housing developments. That fund has got work started on 12,000 homes – a quarter of which are here in London. For the first time the government is investing directly in the private rented sector London has benefited from a share of the Build to Rent fund, to help build new homes specifically for private rent. And today, I can confirm 3 new deals worth over £250 million, to help deliver over 1,000 additional homes for rent across the capital. It means that over the past 2 years, we’ll have put plans in place to deliver over 4,000 new homes for private rent, in deals with nearly half a billion pounds. On top of this we’ve established the Private Rented Sector Taskforce, which has facilitated ambitions to invest over £10 billion in new private rented homes, including 30 new entrants to the market. The research firm Molior says 112 purpose-built private rent schemes in London as of February 2015, up almost 8% on the year before. We want to see much more investment London’s private rented sector – and the last thing we will do is deter good landlords and investors by increasing red tape and unnecessary regulations such as rent controls, which is what the opposition were promising before the election. Housing zones - permitted development The government will continue to invest in London’s property market. But it will come as no surprise to the audience here today that finance and good business ideas are only part of the solution. The other vital ingredient is land. Land is clearly scarce in the capital, so we need to ensure new homes are built in the right places – especially on previously developed land and by using existing buildings where we can. We’ve also been working with the Mayor to create 20 new housing zones on brownfield land, with £200 million from the Greater London Authority matched pound for pound with government funding.

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These brownfield sites will be led by partnerships in the local area, using development orders to speed up the process of housebuilding. The number of long-term empty homes is already at a record low of 0.6%. We’ve also changed permitted development rights so underused offices can be converted to residential properties. Estates Gazette have estimated that this could deliver 6,000 new homes in outer London alone. Estates regeneration Using brownfield sites and underused building will be vital for boosting supply, but as we look to build more homes across London, we cannot overlook the need to regenerate those inner city estates that are dominated by the high-rise blocks of the 1960s and 70s. I’ve seen some fantastic examples, including Packington Estate and City Mills. We’ve set aside £150 million to invest in kickstarting this vital work – not only tackling the deprivation that blights the lives of residents in those estates, but to build more homes of good quality design for the whole community. As I have said, the population of London has now exceeded its 1939 peak, and yet the inner boroughs still contain 1.7 million fewer people than they did in 1939. According to Savills, rediscovering just half of this former housing capacity would supply London’s expected housing needs for the next 17 years. Completely rebuilding these estates will provide more homes and commercial space using the same amount of land. It sounds radical, and it is, but past experience tells us doing a little bit here and there won’t work. We need to be this ambitious if we’re serious about increasing the quantity and quality of homes in the capital. Conclusion The housing market in London is expanding and improving, but we all know London needs more homes. No one disputes that. Our capital is a city where people want to be. For some it is a magnet for their talent; for others it is a land of opportunity. However people view their life in London, one thing unites them: they all need somewhere to live. The government can help create and sustain confidence in London’s housing market, for those who build, buy, rent and invest in housing. Most importantly, we will continue to fund and support the Mayor to deliver the homes London needs to maintain its position as the world’s premier city.

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So we can ensure that those birds keeping coming home to roost for the next 150 years. DCLG Government action to help provide more new homes in London 17 September 2014 https://www.gov.uk/government/news/government-action-to-help-provide-more-new-homes-in-london Housing Minister takes steps to ensure that empty and redundant office space in the London Borough of Islington can continue to be converted into new homes for Londoners. Housing Minister, Brandon Lewis, today (17 September 2014) took steps to ensure that empty and redundant office space in the London Borough of Islington can continue to be converted into new homes for Londoners. Since May 2013, those looking to convert offices into new homes have been able to do so under a permitted development right – that is, without applying for planning permission, other than a light-touch “prior approval” mechanism for transport, contamination and flooding issues. Such rights have been enthusiastically adopted by the housing industry, with a particular move towards providing new studio and 1 bedroom flats. This has included the conversion and refurbishment of the Archway Tower in Islington. However, Islington council issued an Article 4 Direction, seeking to remove these rights across the borough. This was despite a special exemption exercise previously taking place, which exempted the much of the strategic office space in the borough. After discussions with the council, the steps taken today by ministers will limit where office to residential conversions cannot take place under permitted development rights to very small, targeted parts of Islington – rather than a blanket ban applying across the whole area. Anyone looking to convert offices to homes outside those specific areas will continue benefit from the government’s permitted development rights, where they no longer have to apply for planning permission other than the prior approval process. Housing Minister Brandon Lewis said: “House building levels have reached their highest levels since 2007, but there is an acute need for more homes, especially in London. “With more mobile modern day working practices, and housing being in such demand, it makes sense to allow the free market to create new homes on brownfield land. In turn, such regeneration helps protect the countryside. “The steps I’m taking today ensure that Londoners can benefit from the steps we’ve taken to cut red tape and make it easier to deliver these new homes in Islington.” This map, for illustration purposes, gives a general outline of the areas in Islington where the Article 4 Direction applies. Formal documentation will be published by the council. (Islington: office to residential outline map PDF, 2.11MB, 1 page )

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C PQs

Housing Completions: Greater London Asked by: Foxcroft, Vicky To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, what the housing completion rates were in (a) London, (b) the London Borough of Lewisham and (c) Lewisham, Deptford constituency in each of the last five years. Answering member: Brandon Lewis Statistics on house building completions in England, London and in each London borough, including Lewisham, are published in the Department's live tables 253 (annual) and 253a (quarterly), which are available at the following link: http://www.gov.uk/government/statistical-data-sets/live-tables-on-house-building These figures exclude other sources of housing supply such as conversions. These statistics are not available by parliamentary constituency. 07 Jul 2015 | 5096 Affordable Housing: Greater London Asked by: Mitchell, Austin To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, if he will take steps to create more affordable housing in London. Answering member: Brandon Lewis Decentralisation The Coalition Government decentralised housing, regeneration and economic development to the Mayor of London from April 2012. This enables him to shape programmes and direct funding to meet London’s needs. As part of the transfer of housing and regeneration functions we provided a capital grant of around £2.6 billion to the Greater London Authority up to 2014-15 to fund the housing and regeneration programmes inherited from the Homes and Communities Agency, the London Development Agency and for the development of the Olympic Park. Budget measures Our commitment to support London was set out in the recent Budget, where the Government set out the following proposals for London:

o £1 million to allow the London Land Commission to create a comprehensive database of public sector and brownfield land.

o £7 million to the Greater London Authority to support the development of the Croydon Growth Zone. This could unlock over 4,000 homes and 10,000 jobs.

o £97 million of funding and a ring-fenced local 50% share of business rate growth to support the London Borough of Barnet and the Greater London Authority’s plans for the regeneration of Brent Cross. This will unlock approximately 7,500 homes of which at least 15% will be affordable.

o Consult on giving greater powers over planning on sightlines and wharves to the Mayor of London, allowing the Mayor to accelerate provision of new homes by reducing planning delays.

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Affordable housing investment Government funding for new affordable housing in London is as follows: 2010-11: £1.1 billion (outturn), 2011-12: £712 million (outturn), 2012-13: £400 million (budget), 2013-14: £392 million (budget); 2014-15: £516 million (budget). However, this understates the total expenditure on new affordable housing in this Parliament. Across England, our affordable housing programme in 2011-15 is delivering £19.5 billion of public and private investment in affordable housing; about a quarter of which is being provided in London. This investment continues to contribute to the provision of new affordable homes for Londoners, of which 51,300 had already been delivered in London between April 2010 and the end of September 2014. A further £1.07 billion has been allocated from the 2015-18 Affordable Homes Programme, to deliver another 32,000 new affordable homes in London. In addition a further £180 million has been allocated from the Affordable Homes Guarantee Programme to deliver 8,700 homes. The Greater London Authority has so far announced initial grant allocations of £404 million to deliver 18,000 new homes and are now inviting further bids on a continuous market engagement basis. Again, the grant funding understates the total anticipated expenditure on affordable housing. We will deliver a total of 275,000 new affordable homes across England in 2015-20, with £38 billion of public and private investment. London’s allocation for 2018-20 has not been finalised. Building more rented accommodation The London Housing Bank is a new housing fund intended as a springboard to home ownership for aspirational working households on lower incomes. Through London Housing Bank, we are providing the Greater London Authority with £200 million of low-cost loan funding to deliver 3,000 – 4,000 new homes by March 2018. The Greater London Authority has already announced the first allocations of funding from the London Housing Bank, which will help deliver intermediate rental homes. These schemes include: Peabody Homes in Thamesmead; Isis part of the wider Hale Wharf regeneration site; and Quintain part of the continued regeneration of Wembley Park. Under our £1 billion Build to Rent fund we have contracted 4 schemes in London worth over £63 million and delivering 671 homes for private rent. Improving social housing We have awarded Decent Homes Backlog Funding of £821 million to 14 London Boroughs. This funding has so far made 42,110 homes decent. Gap funding granted to stock transfer landlords of £24 million has helped ensure that less than 0.9% of their stock failed the Decent Homes Standard at the end of March 2014. A further £145 million has been awarded to 9 London Boroughs to tackle their remaining Decent Homes Backlog. This will help to ensure that no more than 10% of stock in each local authority is non-decent by April 2016. We have also taken steps to protect leaseholders from excessive works charges imposed by local authorities. Reducing empty housing We have provided the Greater London Authority with £29 million to bring 1,600 empty homes back into use as affordable housing. Our full package of reforms to tackle empty housing is outlined in the written answer of 17 March 2015, Question 227326.

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London Boroughs have been allocated a total of £720 million of New Homes Bonus funding for 2011-2016, recognising over 140,000 additions to stock, and over 15,000 long-term empty properties returned to use. Almost 50,000 of these also received the premium for affordable homes. Supporting self-build and custom build In July 2012 we launched the Custom Build Homes Loan Fund and we delegated £5 million to the Greater London Authority to administer schemes in London. Bids exceeding this were submitted to the Greater London Authority and £4.8 million was allocated. We have exempted self-builders from Community Infrastructure Levy and Section 106 tariffs. Promoting home ownership schemes Since the start of the Help to Buy scheme in March 2012, over 5,300 families across London have brought a home using the support of a Government loan or guarantee, of which over 4,200 sales were to first-time buyers. This includes 2,430 under the Equity Loan sales scheme (of which 2,304 were to first-time buyers), 2,175 under the Mortgage Guarantee sales (of which 1,955 to first-time buyers) and 721 Newbuy sales (data is not available for the number of first-time buyers). We have reinvigorated the Right to Buy, with a proportion of the sales receipts being used to build new housing. This increases housing supply, moves people up the housing ladder and gets people off waiting lists. Supporting locally-led regeneration schemes We, with the Mayor, are investing each investing £200 million to create 20 new Housing Zones which will deliver 50,000 homes in London. The Mayor announced the first eleven Housing Zones in London in February 2015. We are working with the Greater London Authority and Transport for London to unlock 11,000 homes at Barking Riverside. We have invested around £125 million through Get Britain Building for twenty two schemes which has resulted in starts for 3,000 homes. The schemes include: Brentford Locks West – Get Britain Building funding enabled the first phase of this mixed use scheme by Isis Waterside Development to be delivered, bringing forward the first three blocks which deliver a total of 150 homes. Grahame Park, Brent – Get Britain Building funding unlocked a phase of this major regeneration scheme that had stalled. The first block of homes was completed in March 2014 with the final homes due to complete in March 2015. Lewisham Gateway - Get Britain Building funding will deliver 193 units and indirectly support the delivery of an additional 701 homes. We have shortlisted four housing estates in London for a share of a £150 million Government loan fund for Estate Regeneration. These schemes are in Grahame Park, in Barnet; Blackwall Reach and New Union Wharf, in Tower Hamlets and Aylesbury Estate, in Southwark. They would provide more than 8,000 new homes, of which more than 3,000 would be additional homes The Government announced in 2012 a UK Guarantee which would allow the Mayor of London to borrow £1 billion at a new preferential rate from the Public Works Loan Board to support the Northern Line Extension. We have aslo recently made regulations allowing the retention of 100% of business rates growth in the area from which to fund the borrowing. The

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extension is critical to the realisation of the £8 billion Battersea Power Station redevelopment, as well as the wider regeneration of the Vauxhall and Nine Elms area. Surplus Public Sector Land capable of delivering almost 28,000 homes has been sold in London. This was critical towards helping us achieve our wider ambition to dispose of land for 100,000 homes across England by the end of March 2015. We have supported a number of other regeneration projects in London. These include:

o £141 million capital grant to the Greater London Authority for Olympicopolis – this project aims to develop a new education and cultural quarter on the Olympic Park.

o £10 million capital funding for the London Enterprise Fund to support the regeneration of Croydon and Tottenham (2011-12).

o Royal Albert Docks Enterprise Zone - we awarded a grant of £12 million from

the ‘Building Foundations for Growth’ fund which is designed to accelerate progress on the zones to maximise long-term job creation. This supports the Mayor’s priority for growth in East London and building on past 30 years of regeneration in the wider area. Regeneration of the Royals will support the convergence of East London with the wider city area.

Tackling homelessness and rough sleeping We have supported the Mayor in tackling homelessness in London through:

o £34 million grant to tackle rough sleeping across London;

o Developing a pioneering £5 million Social Impact Bond to improve the outcomes for a large group of persistent rough sleepers in London;

o Providing £3.8 million from the Homelessness Transition Fund for the No

Second Night Out scheme to help new rough sleepers off the street quickly in London; and

o Allocating £2.8 million of Single Homelessness funding in 2011/12 to take

forward a package of measures to prevent and tackle single homelessness, including rough sleeping.

In addition we have provided £167 million Homelessness Prevention Grant to local authorities in London to tackle homelessness and rough sleeping. There is more to do, but I hope this illustrates the decision action taken by this Government to build more affordable homes and help people move on and up the housing ladder. 26 Mar 2015 | 219222

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Affordable Housing: Greater London Asked by: Khan, Sadiq To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, how many affordable homes were built in each London Borough in each year since 2010. Answering member: Brandon Lewis Statistics on delivery of affordable housing by local authority area are published in the Department’s live table 1008, which is available at: www.gov.uk/government/statistical-data-sets/live-tables-on-affordable-housing-supply These statistics include both newly built housing and acquisitions, and include figures for 2010-11, 2011-12 and 2012-13. Further statistics will be published in due course. My department holds some statistics for 2013-14, for affordable housing delivery through programmes reported by the Homes and Communities Agency and the Greater London Authority (but not through other sources). In total, the combined figures show that almost 200,000 affordable homes have been delivered in England from 2010-11 to 2013-14, of which almost 49,000 are in London. We expect these figures to be revised upwards when full affordable housing supply statistics are published in due course. The Government’s affordable housing programme for 2015 to 2018 aims to deliver 165,000 new affordable homes, and lever in a further £23 billion of public and private investment in affordable housing. 01 Sep 2014 | 206261

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D Other parliamentary material

Debates Queen’s Speech 02 Jun 2015 | Proceeding contributions | House of Lords | 762 cc320-395 Housing Market (London) 18 Nov 2014 | Adjournment debates | House of Commons | Westminster Hall | 588 cc64-74WH

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E Further reading

London Housing Strategy, Mayor of London, Greater London Authority, London Assembly The Mayor's statutory London Housing Strategy sets out his policies to meet the housing needs of London's growing population with well-designed homes of all tenures, and in particular to support London's working households. Housing in London 2014, Greater London Authority, April 2014 Housing in London is the evidence base for the Mayor’s London Housing Strategy, summarising key patterns and trends across a wide range of topics relevant to housing in the capital. The Mayor formally adopted his London Housing Strategy in February 2010 and recently consulted on a revised version. This new edition of Housing in London has been developed alongside the revised draft Strategy. Housing Statistics, Department for Communities and Local Government Live tables on affordable housing supply Last updated: 16 June 2015 For London Boroughs see:

Table 1008: additional affordable homes provided by local authority area MS Excel Spreadsheet, 100KB

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