Mayor of London names final two housing zones and reveals plans for 10 more

Johnson announced last June that 20 zones with relaxed planning rules would be created in London, to deliver a proposed 50,000 homes by 2025. In a statement last week, the mayor announced that Morden town centre in the London Borough of Merton and an area of central Lambeth were the final two housing zones to be designated under the initial plans.

The housing zones will each benefit from a share of £400 million in loans from central government and the Greater London Authority (GLA) to help clean up brownfield land and deliver the necessary infrastructure to support rapid development.

Johnson said that “huge areas of the city” would be regenerated under the first 20 designations and declared an intention to create a further 10 housing zones by the end of his mayoral term in May 2016.

A statement from the GLA said the 20 designated zones were together expected to deliver more than 53,000 homes. It said 11 stations would be created or improved under the initiative and that plans submitted by the successful bidders included 11 new parks, 11 schools, nine health centres, 11 bridges, six libraries and eight civic facilities.

Planning expert Victoria Lindsay of Pinsent Masons, the law firm behind Out-Law.com, said: "This announcement brings the final two housing zones into play. The boroughs containing these housing zones will receive a share of £400 million in loans from GLA and central government and each borough will now be held to account in delivering the agreed, bespoke outputs for their designated housing zone via a suite of funding agreements with the GLA."

"The housing zone programme is all about acceleration of housing delivery and the GLA wants to see delivery of tangible housing outputs. The momentum must therefore be maintained so that the overarching objective of achieving more housing is not put at risk", Lindsay said.

"The mayor's commitment to a further 10 housing zones in London means that once more the City will outstrip the rest of the country, where 20 housing zones are being brought forward" said Marcus Bate, another planning expert at Pinsent Masons. "The chancellor must surely be tempted to consider a similar extension of this excellent initiative outside London, if only to match the ambitions of his political colleague/rival."