Mayor of London Sadiq Khan has been urged to protect London’s Green Belt from the government’s National Planning Policy Framework.
The motion was raised by Thomas Turrell (pictured), who is a member of the London Assembly for Bexley and Bromley.
It’s thought it won’t be possible to reach the London’s given target of building nearly 88,000 homes per year without using the Green Belt.
Turrell said: “London’s lungs, our greenbelt, is at risk from the implications of the NPPF, despite us having a wealth of brownfield sites in the city to utilise to meet housing targets.
“There are also concerns about meeting the need for family housing in our city, rather than just dozens of high-rise flats.
“The Assembly has backed this motion now calling on the Mayor to lobby for an amended NPPF to reflect these concerns which we share.”
The Assembly called on Sir Sadiq Khan to lobby the government to:
- Ensure that London’s housing targets are deliverable on brownfield land
- Replace blanket unit-based targets for each area with housing-type targets, such as habitable room targets
- Bring forward measures to incentivise, and remove obstacles from, schemes with planning permission being built out in a timely manner, including social, accessible and affordable housing schemes
The Greater London Authority (GLA) has already started contacting London boroughs about reviewing the Green Belt, saying land release “appears unavoidable given the changes to national policy”.
The Assembly said top-down targets do not take into account the type of housing Londoners need, especially family-sized homes in many areas.
The Assembly also noted that, according to the Planning London Datahub, there are over 800,000 homes in London with planning approval that have not yet been completed, including over 500,000 that have not yet been started.
