Next London mayor should review fast-track planning route for affordable housing, says HBF

As London heads to the polls, the Home Builders Federation has urged the next mayor to review the fast-track route for planning applications that meet or exceed 35% affordable housing, stating that it is not serving its purpose.

The trade association said the mechanism has proven to be more of a hindrance than a help, as conditions determining eligibility for the fast-track route “have become numerous, complex and unworkable”.

Their ‘Building blocks for the next mayor’ document, which outlines the housing industry’s key asks for the next mayor, says the next mayor should review the threshold approach to ensure it is “genuinely an incentive that will help schemes secure full planning permission much faster”.

The document states that to benefit from the fast-track, proposals must comply with at least 63 policies that apply to new housebuilding in the London Plan, as well as local plan policy.

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The HBF described this as “unfeasible”, and said it results in “nearly every scheme” being caught by the need for detailed scrutiny and early, mid and late-stage viability assessments.

The association said the mayor should revise the London Plan to remove the need for schemes to comply with every policy in order to meet eligibility for the fast-track approach.

Consultant Lichfields recently calculated that it now takes an average of a year to secure planning permission, four times the length it did 30 years ago.

The body also says that the mayor should incentivise registered providers to support developer-led s106 schemes. It notes that due to financial challenges and the increase in the cost of regulation, the majority of RPs are currently unable to make offers to home builders.

The HBF said that this is affecting housing delivery across London, including affordable housing supply, as home builders are not able to start building unless they have a legal agreement with an RP to acquire the affordable homes.

With the number of skilled construction workers declining and the existing workforce aging, it also highlights the need for funding and resources to ensure colleges deliver courses that reflect the needs of the labour market “rather than what the Further Education (FE) college leaders consider viable to run.”

Support for the delivery of small sites for home building and a review of London’s green belt are also among the list of recommendations made.

James Stevens, director for cities at the Home Builders Federation, said: “Amid a deepening housing crisis, with house building levels falling sharply and affordability squeezed, there is a real opportunity to begin to reverse this downward trend and support the industry to deliver the homes that London desperately needs.”