Report for mayor of London recommends investment in council planning departments and release of land from green belt

Independent business organisation London First published the report, named 'London2036: an agenda for jobs and growth' (98-page / 7.45 MB PDF), yesterday. The report identified a series of interventions that it claimed "could make the biggest positive difference to London's economy", including several recommendations for the acceleration of housing delivery in the capital.

The report said the capital required "a dramatic increase in the pace at which new housing is delivered". It said rising housing costs were "putting pressure not just on residents but also on businesses - partly because commercial space is being shifted to residential use, which pushes up commercial costs, and partly because high costs are beginning to make it harder to attract and retain talented people for all but the highest paid jobs".

Among the recommendations for boosting London's housing supply were the "beefing up [of] borough-level planning resources to speed up planning and pre-commencement processes", and the introduction of "hard incentives, both positive and negative" to ensure that councils met agreed development targets.

The report recommended that planning policy be amended to allow "low-quality land currently designated as green belt" to be developed and to increase the permitted density of development around "accessible transport locations".

Other recommendations in the report included: bringing more publicly held brownfield sites forward for development; removing restrictions on councils borrowing against the value of their housing stock; and working to "ensure a lack of construction skills in London does not become a barrier to home building".

LEP deputy chair Harvey McGrath welcomed the report. "The next steps are to develop a set of specific actions, short- and long-term, to drive change," said McGrath in its foreword. "This will require further issue-specific analyses in consultation with relevant stakeholders – across private and public sectors, at national, London and local level."