New Draft GLA London Housing Strategy
The Greater London Authority has now published the Mayor's new draft London Housing Strategy, which heavily reflects the 2016 GLA 2017-21 Funding Prospectus.
Small RPs:
Specific support will be available for smaller housing associations, including encouraging new consortia to share expertise and development programmes.
Construction Skills Shortage:
Committed to working with industry to deliver the skills needed to significantly increase London’s housing output. The Mayor’s Construction Academy scheme will deliver an approach to skills and training which will help make sure there are enough people with the construction skills that London needs, including a focus on increasing the involvement of groups and communities currently under-represented in the construction workforce.
The Academy scheme, guided by input from industry, will build on existing structures of training and skills provision, using a pan- London network to enable increased collaboration between skills training providers and construction employers who have vacancies to fill. This approach will help to ensure that local skills provision is planned according to construction employers’ skills requirements, as well as facilitating job brokerage between training providers and construction employers.
The development and delivery of the Academy scheme will be driven by senior stakeholders representing the construction industry, skills providers, and local government, overseen by the Mayor’s Homes for Londoners and Skills for Londoners boards. The Academy scheme will be supported by at least £8 million of funding, including capital investment for improvements to training providers’ premises and equipment, ensuring that Londoners have access to cutting edge training provision in traditional construction skills as well as those required for precision manufactured homes.
All those participating in the Construction Academy scheme – contractors, developers, housing associations, councils, and training providers – will be publicly acknowledged as the Mayor’s partners in tackling the construction skills challenge.
London Living Rent (10 years AST):
When funded through the Mayor’s Affordable Homes Programme, London Living Rent is designed to offer sub-market rents for up to ten years, helping households on average income levels to save for a deposit.
RCGF:
As non-profit organisations, proceeds of sales from housing associations will be put to use to support their social purpose. Where homes are funded by the Mayor it is important that the subsidy supports genuinely affordable housing in perpetuity. In order to ensure this, the Mayor has placed new conditions that require recipients of affordable housing grant to inform the Mayor whenever such funding becomes repayable or recyclable. This will help to protect public investment in affordable homes and ensure that it can be reinvested to support further provision of affordable homes.
London Housing Design:
updating and consolidating London’s housing design standards into a single new planning document, including examples of well-designed high density development, and maintaining London’s space standards;
The Mayor’s draft London Plan will include requirements for 10 per cent of all new build housing in London to be wheelchair user dwellings (wheelchair accessible or adaptable), and the remaining 90 per cent to be accessible and adaptable dwellings. Not entirely clear if 10% is part M4(3) and 90% part M 4(2) – will ask GLA.
These objectives are set out in Mayor’s draft London Environment Strategy and his forthcoming draft London Plan. In particular, the Mayor wants to use his planning powers to ensure that new homes contribute to the necessary shift towards a zero carbon future and is committed to including his zero carbon target for new housing developments within his draft London Plan.