Gove announces new brownfield funding for London

The housing secretary has announced more than £175m to increase housing delivery in London. 

Michael Gove’s latest package of investment includes £50m for estate regeneration schemes that are supported by local communities. 

This money is on top of the £1bn allocated through the Affordable Homes Programme, which was opened up for use on regeneration schemes last June. 

A further £125m loan will support 8,000 homes across three major brownfield schemes in Newham and Southwark. 

Roughly 40% of new homes on two of the sites, which have planned permission, will be “genuinely affordable”. The first new homes are expected to be ready in 2027. 

Government is also working with Camden council to explore optiosn for housing regeneration around Euston station, with an initial £4m investment to establish a Euston Housing Delivery Group. 

Plans to build a HS2 terminus station were mothballed last autumn, with the future of the project dependent on attracting private finance.

The group will assess the scale of housing opportunity beyond the Euston station site, identify infrastrucutre services required and consider how these opportunities could be delivered in partnership with the Department for Transport, the Euston Partnership and the local council.  

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Andrea Ruckstuhl, chief executive of Lendlease in Europe, said: “A Euston Housing Delivery Group is a very positive step forwards as there is clearly enormous potential for the delivery of new homes there and the regeneration of an area that we believe can become one of Europe’s leading centres for innovation and life sciences.  

“We look forward to continued close working with DLUHC, the London Borough of Camden, the Department for Transport, and local partners and communities to help those aspirations become reality.” 

The announcement is one of several this week by Gove.

Yesterday he unveiled proposed changes to planning guidance in a bid to boost brownfield development while on Monday he announced a £3bn extension to the Affordable Homes Guarantees Scheme, which enables registered providers to access cheaper government-backed loan finance.

The government also published the London Plan review this week, which was commissioned by Gove as a result of his concern about housing delivery levels in the capital.  The review, led by planning barrister Christopher Katkowski KC, said the complexity of policies in Sadiq Khan’s London plan is frustrating delivery. Khan dismissed the review as a “stunt.”