First of Sadiq Khan's 'Small Sites' gets planning nod

Sadiq Khan’s first ‘Small Site, Small Builders’ housing development scheme designed to develop small plots of publicly-owned land into affordable housing has been given the go-ahead by Barnet Council.

Of the 97 homes (pictured), 35 will be what the mayor’s office labelled “genuinely affordable”, meeting his demand that half of new housing built on publicly-owned land is affordable.

The mayor’s office said that with many of the 35 homes’ rooms being large in size the affordability level worked out at 50%, using Barnet council’s habitable rooms methodology.

The 1.4-acre plot is being developed by Croydon-based building firm Kuropatwa and work is expected to start by the end of this year.

The site, owned by Transport for London, is currently an overgrown patch of land between the North Circular road and a series of detached homes.

Khan has made utilising public land to build homes a key policy target, as was enabling small firms to bid for the schemes via what he called “a simple bidding process and standardised legal contracts”.

Twelve small TfL sites in seven boroughs – Barnet, Brent, Enfield, Hammersmith & Fulham, Lambeth, Merton and Tower Hamlets – are in line to be developed to provide housing under the five-year scheme, which is a London Economic Action Partnership initiative backed by more than £17m of public money.

James Murray, deputy Mayor for housing and residential development said: “It’s great to see Beechwood Avenue get the green light, helping to delver a range of much-needed genuinely affordable homes in Barnet.”

Graeme Craig, TfL’s director of commercial development said his organisation had a key role to play in unlocking its land to support Khan’s ambitions to create thousands of new homes for Londoners.

“It’s exciting to be working with small and medium-sized builders and see the first of our sites through the GLA’s programme at Beechwood Avenue in Barnet progress through planning,” he added.