Mayor outlines ambitious targets for east London over next 10 years
Boris sets building goals for all boroughs
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East London will take on the greatest responsibility for delivering new housing in the capital under plans that would see 333,800 homes built over the next 10 years.
London mayor Boris Johnson this week set a ‘challenging target’ of at least 33,400 new homes for the capital every year between 2011 and 2021 - and revealed the share of homes that he expects each borough to build.
The biggest targets are for east London. The mayor wants 28,850 homes to be built in Tower Hamlets, just less than 26,000 in Greenwich, and 25,000 in Newham.
The targets are set out in the second draft of City Hall’s London Plan, which went out for public consultation on Monday.
Mr Johnson said boroughs should make sure development happened - particularly on brownfield land - to achieve the targets and exceed them.
‘We will tackle stress and overcrowding by building houses that once again have decent-sized rooms, and we will insist on architecture that once again delights the eye,’ he added.
David Woods, corporate director of customer services at Barking & Dagenham Council, which has a target of 15,100 homes, said: ‘It’s extremely challenging but in a sense the Greater London Authority is right to set ambitious targets.
‘We have 10,000 people waiting [for a home]. We are struggling to see how we are going to do it, but we are up for the challenge.’
A spokesperson for Tower Hamlets Council said: ‘The housing challenge in Tower Hamlets is significant with more than 22,000 on the housing register and high levels of overcrowding across all sectors (more than 15,752 households).’
Dino Patel, regional manager for the London Housing Federation, said: ‘We are in favour of building mixed tenure, mixed income communities and would prefer if the mayor works with us and the private sector to ensure we don’t end up creating concentrations of social housing in some boroughs and market homes in others.’
Mr Patel added that 34 per cent of the 10,634 affordable homes built in London last year were in five east London postcodes, and 13 per cent were in E14, because of the available land and high demand in these areas.
But he warned: ‘We need to ensure that in addressing the immediate needs we don’t end up creating problems in the future.’
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Readers' comments (5)
sharon | 14/10/2009 9:26 am
Poor old east london - already stuffed to the gills and set to get even more stuffed! Where are these new properties going to go? Surely there's not enough room for all these targets to be houses!! And are any of them going to be commonhold?
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Steve | 14/10/2009 9:56 am
Surprise, surprise! 3 inner east London boroughs that will almost never become Tory (when hell freezes over scenario) get lumbered with almost a quarter of the target. Perhaps there's still a bit of room under the City Airport flightpath?
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Peter | 14/10/2009 10:04 am
Mr Mayor, to have 'the best city on earth' does not mean cramming it with housing and people!
The problem with London is; it is choked with people, buildings, traffic, congestion and poor infra structure of the transport system. You will need to consider how you can make London can breath, flow and evolve naturally.
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Ged Quayle | 14/10/2009 11:32 am
Haven't read the plan - does it explain where all the extra water's coming from? Where the extra schools are going? Hospitals? Cemeteries? Roads?
300,000 homes means probably another million? people. We'll have school children commuting to the suburbs at this rate because there's no school for them anywhere nearer, and there'll be no room to die. London's never been easy to live in but is Johson hell bent on making it... well... Hell?
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Hank Johnson | 14/10/2009 5:22 pm
Cram it all in I say. It'll be the best city on earth when Boris is finished with it.
Might need to dig a couple more tunnels for the tube though.
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