Policy information sourced from The London Plan 2021

H1 Increasing Housing Supply

  1. Table 4.1 sets the ten-year targets for net housing completions that each local planning authority should plan for. Boroughs must include these targets in their Development Plan Documents.
  2. To ensure that ten-year housing targets are achieved, boroughs should:
    • prepare delivery-focused Development Plans which:
      • allocate an appropriate range and number of sites that are suitable for residential and mixed-use development and intensification
      • encourage development on other appropriate windfall sites not identified in Development Plans through the Plan period, especially from the sources of supply listed in B2
      • enable the delivery of housing capacity identified in Opportunity Areas, working closely with the GLA.
    • optimise the potential for housing delivery on all suitable and available brownfield sites through their Development Plans and planning decisions, especially the following sources of capacity:
      • sites with existing or planned public transport access levels (PTALs) 3-6 or which are located within 800m distance of a station or town centre boundary
      • mixed-use redevelopment of car parks and low-density retail parks and supermarkets
      • housing intensification on other appropriate low-density sites in commercial, leisure and infrastructure uses
      • the redevelopment of surplus utilities and public sector owned sites
      • small sites (see Policy H2 Small sites)
      • industrial sites that have been identified through the processes set out in Policy E4 Land for industry, logistics and services to support London’s economic function, Policy E5 Strategic Industrial Locations (SIL), Policy E6 Locally Significant Industrial Sites and Policy E7 Industrial intensification, co-location and substitution.
    • establish ambitious and achievable build-out rates at the planning stage, incentivising build-out milestones to help ensure that homes are built quickly and to reduce the likelihood of permissions being sought to sell land on at a higher value.
  3. Boroughs should proactively use brownfield registers and permission in principle to increase planning certainty for those wishing to build new homes.
  4. Boroughs should publish and annually update housing trajectories based on the targets in Table 4.1 and should work with the Mayor to resolve any anticipated shortfalls.
  5. Where new sustainable transport infrastructure is planned, boroughs should re-evaluate the appropriateness of land use designations and the potential to accommodate higher-density residential and mixed-use development, taking into account future public transport capacity and connectivity levels.
  6. On sites that are allocated for residential and mixed-use development there is a general presumption against single use low-density retail and leisure parks. These developments should be designed to provide a mix of uses including housing on the same site in order to make the best use of land available for development.

For more information please see The London Plan 2021