Mayor sets out standards for London homes
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All publicly funded homes built in London after 2011 will have to meet minimum standards on space and comfort under plans set out by the mayor today.
Boris Johnson has published his London Housing Design Guide for consultation, setting out the key areas of design that new developments will have to address.
The criteria include minimum internal space requirements that are around 10 per cent higher than the Parker Morris standards set in 1961, to ensure a mix of housing types, and to design homes to suit the changing climate.
The standards could eventually be applied to private homes as well as those in the public sector.
Mr Johnson said: ‘For too long we have built homes to indecently poor standards – fit neither for Bilbo Baggins nor his hobbit friends – and that is indefensible.
‘The finest city in the world deserves the finest housing for its inhabitants and when we get it wrong we can scar generation after generation.’
Boris’ standards
The London Housing Design Guide sets out six areas of design new developments will have to address:
- focusing on the spaces between and around buildings so that developments integrate with the wider public realm
- ensuring a mix of housing sizes, types and tenures at a range of densities for the diverse needs of Londoners
- better design of entrances and shared circulation areas, with measures to design out crime at the outset of a development, as well as car parking and cycle and waste storage
- new minimum internal space standards including guidance on the size and layout of different rooms to ensure greater flexibility of space in the home - the minimum space standards recommended are broadly ten per cent higher than the 1961 Parker Morris benchmark
- making homes more comfortable places to live and enjoy by making them quieter, lighter and better ventilated
- ensuring homes are designed to meet climate change and are suitable for warmer summers and wetter winters
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Readers' comments (7)
Ancient Greek | 08/07/2009 10:27 am
Excellent and about time - missed out by his predecessor.
This alone may qualify the Mayor as our new 'Pericles' of London's Golden Age.
What a brilliant lead this could provide if widely adopted, shaming the private house builders into action in the private sector !- even the 'award winning' ones.
??G? as my ancestors would proclaim.
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B.S. Townroe | 08/07/2009 10:51 am
Pericles? Malaka, more like.
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Sally Anne Longden | 08/07/2009 11:43 am
Well, England is only about 50 years behind the times - all of this space planning, detailing of private/public spaces, designing out crime etc. has been known about and done in the USA for donkey's years.
I was on the board of a Housing Trust, and was got rid of pretty quickly the moment I started making comments about the abysmally small living spaces, the incredibly poor (i.e. none) 'design', and saying that good quality homes don't actually cost more to build in the first place, but you have to have properly trained architects and interior designers working together.
I also want to point out that I feel a lot of social problems are engedered by poor housing. If your space is so small you have nowhere to invite friends to, no place to indulge in a hobby (model trains, craftwork...) unable to seat more than 4 persons in a combined living/dining area, and unable to even have 2 in the kitchen at a time; then you have sofas in the front yards, youths wandering the streets, adults with no choice but to watch TV or go to the pub etc. On experiments with white mice long ago it was proved that cramped, stressed living conditions led to fights, cannabalism, health problems and shortened lives.
I would also say that England is a small country. It is sheer madness to continue to allow unlimited immigration when we are already having problems with housing, water and sewerage provision amongst others. We need to house our own decently first, and then if there is no room for new arrivals without building on green land and no available dentists, school places etc. then it is just too bad. One in, one out should be the policy.
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Chris Webb | 08/07/2009 12:14 pm
Sally - I don't think it was your observations about living space that upset your Housing Trust colleagues. More likely it was your bottom line that caused disquiet.
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B.S. Townroe | 08/07/2009 12:58 pm
And in the stone age there were only around 350,000 people in these islands but we're not in the stone age now...., sorry, some still are.
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Phil Lyons | 08/07/2009 8:45 pm
errrr Did I miss something??
Wasn't the TSA meant to be consulting the tenants on standards? I know he likes to get around but somehow I cant see Boris doing a very good impression of Pete!
That said, it is good to see a new space standard - I hope that it will be just the first and the rest of the country will follow.
Not being very edumecated I have no idea (nor do I really care less) about who this perekles person is but I would be curious to know what he had to say about living space??
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ILAG | 09/07/2009 0:11 am
Sally and Ancient Greek are completely right on all points. Well said. Just ignore the sarcastic lefties. Doubtless they work in the public sector and have bought into to the woolly minded sandal wearer mentality that currently seems a prerequisite to employment by the State.
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