Brownfield development needs to be 'given the green light' in the Autumn Statement



The Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, has today (20th November 2023) urged ministers to back the building of new homes on brownfield land in London, as new analysis shows that an injection of £470m from the government in its upcoming Autumn Statement would accelerate the development of 76,000 new homes.


This would help to alleviate the capital’s housing crisis, which is now pushing more and more Londoners into insecure or unaffordable housing — and would allow the Mayor to make key interventions to make developments viable such as developing transport infrastructure and site preparation.

Delivering more high-quality, genuinely affordable homes has been a top priority for the Mayor ever since he took office.

Recent City Hall analysis shows that London has increased its housing stock by 8% since 2016.

If ministers had managed to match London’s growth in housing completions outside of the capital, then this would have delivered an additional 300,000 homes in the rest of England.
 
In addition, by working in partnership with councils and housing associations, Sadiq has delivered higher genuinely affordable homebuilding than at any point since City Hall records began and higher council homebuilding than at any point since the 1970s.

The Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, commented: “However, there is much more to be done as we pursue a fairer, more prosperous city for all.

“The government must act now to enable the building of tens of thousands of homes in the capital and I’m urging them to use the Autumn Statement to do just this.”   

The Mayor of Newham, Rokhsana Fiaz OBE, said: “Ministers need to back the call by the Mayor to unleash London so we can deliver more housing on brownfield sites.

“In Newham alone, we can deliver an additional 565 homes our people can afford on the brownfield sites we have already identified, and there’s another 64 new sites on our Brownfield Register we can build hundreds of more homes our residents desperately need.”

“With the welcomed support from the GLA, and central government, we have already been rising to the challenge of the housing crisis in London.

“We all need to go much further so our vital housebuilding targets can be reached.

“So, brownfield development needs to be given the green light in the Autumn statement.”



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