Responding to today’s speech by the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, Muniya Barua, Deputy Chief Executive of BusinessLDN, said:
“It is welcome to hear that the Government views London as a national asset beyond price and recognises the importance of building more homes in the city.
“But the Government’s continued focus on using permitted development rights to boost housebuilding is applying a sticking plaster to a gaping wound. These proposals could provide a limited amount of additional housing but, particularly in relation to high streets, there remains a danger that the pepper potting of homes without a comprehensive renewal strategy will do little to breathe life back into areas struggling to attract investment.
“We now need the Government to deliver an ambitious plan to accelerate housebuilding. This should include more long-term funding to boost the supply of affordable homes, focusing planning reform on speeding up the determination of applications rather a constant churn of initiatives, the proper resourcing of local planning authorities and reviewing green belt land to identify poor-quality sites for housebuilding.”