Mayor of London

Mayor of London launches SME housebuilders programme



Mayor of London Sadiq Khan has announced the launch of a new pilot to boost the construction of new homes by SME housebuilders.


Under the ‘Small Sites, Small Builders’ programme, small plots of publicly owned land will be made accessible to London’s SME builders.

The mayor has instructed Transport for London (TfL) to bring forward 10 of its small sites for development, with each site providing capacity for between two and 42 homes.

SME housebuilders will be able to bid for access to the land.

Sites at Cable Street, near the Shadwell DLR in Tower Hamlets, and at Christchurch Road in Lambeth have been earmarked for community-led affordable housing.

The 10 plots of land will provide 111 new homes, of which 68% will be affordable housing.

Mr Khan said: “For far too long, London's housing market has been over-reliant on large developers building the majority of our homes on large brownfield sites.

“The number of small sites coming forward has halved in the last decade, and we have lost almost a third of all small- and medium-sized homebuilders operating in the capital.

“Through my new small sites programme, I want to make more public land available to help contribute not only to tackling the housing crisis in London, but also to reinvigorating our small- and medium-sized homebuilding sector.

“I also want to provide more opportunities for community land trusts, which is why I have earmarked two sites specifically for community-led housing.”

Barry Mortimer, director of the Federation of Master Builders London, added: "We welcome this move by the Mayor of London, which will help bring forward a small number of small sites across the capital and give SME builders the land they are crying out for.

“This is a step in the right direction but if we are to address London’s housing shortage, we need many more of these initiatives going forward.”



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