The impact of the new Labour government on housing in urban areas

Certainly, the previous government did not make life easy for Mr Khan.

In March, Michael Gove, the housing secretary at the time, ordered Mr Khan to conduct a partial review of the London Plan, focusing specifically on housing delivery. This followed the publication in February of a government-commissioned review which found that, since the beginning of the current London Plan in 2019, 60,000 fewer homes had been built than the strategy had intended. The review recommended an intensified brownfield presumption to increase the supply of new homes.

A review of the London Plan is due in the next mayoral term anyway. The Planning and Compulsory Purchase Act 2004 gives the secretary of state powers to intervene if it is felt that the review isn’t delivering on its objectives. It’s very rare for a secretary of state to do so, but still possible.

And that possibility will be at the forefront of the London Plan team’s minds when the secretary of state is politically adversarial to the mayor. A review is more likely when attitudes towards planning policy are politically divergent. So it is less likely that a Labour secretary of state would bring about both a review and the ensuing changes to policy which the Labour mayor may find unpalatable. 

“Conservatives ultimately wish to ‘protect’ their suburban and rural voters, whereas Labour will always protect its supporters in urban areas”

In this respect, the new Labour government is good news for Mr Khan when the review of the London Plan takes place.

The previous government’s intervention on housing delivery in London underlines a fundamental difference in planning policy between the two main parties, one which is entirely politically driven: Conservatives ultimately wish to ‘protect’ their suburban and rural voters, whereas Labour will always protect its supporters in urban areas.

I use the word protect – perhaps controversially – in relation to protecting voters from the harm of development. Emotive and subjective language in this context is not something you’d expect to hear from a planning consultant, the majority of whose clients are large-scale developers.

But balancing the benefits and harm brought about by development is intrinsic to our planning system. Where development ‘harms’ the status quo, the system enables that harm to be outweighed by benefits. We see this played out daily in the way the planning gain system incentivises development and mitigates its impacts.

And so the result of Labour winning the general election is unlikely to be more development in London, but more ‘protection’ of Londoners from development. Conversely, we expect to see less tolerance for the sentiment of rural nimbys (who have unquestionably had a disproportionate influence on the policies of the Conservative government).

This urban/rural dichotomy is already evident in political sentiment. We don’t know much about Labour’s planning policies yet, but what we do know is that Sir Kier Starmer is keen to review green belt policy – both reducing its strictures and its footprint, and he is likely to remove the 35% ‘urban uplift’.

While this analysis is very black and white, very polarised, so too is politics. I don’t anticipate an immediate reduction in development in London as a result of the recent general election. But I predict more being done to protect Londoners from development – whether through fiscal policy or changes to planning policy to mitigate its impact – both of which would have a direct financial impact on urban developers.

“I predict more being done to ‘protect’ Londoners from development – whether through fiscal policy or changes to planning policy to mitigate its impact”

Already, the Labour London mayor has introduced a policy (D9 of the London Plan) which, in my view, thwarts the development of tall buildings.

There is also an increasing element of zoning through the London Plan which requires the determination of the future use of land at the plan-making stage. As such, it discourages ad hoc applications for certain types of development, such as industrial co-location. This stifles creativity and the opportunity for development that better responds to demographic trends and market conditions. For example, specific policies within the London Plan, such as E4 (land for industry, logistics and services to support London’s economic function), E5 (strategic industrial locations), E6 (locally significant industrial sites) and E7 (industrial intensification, co-location and substitution) rule out potential for mixed use, including co-location schemes which can bring about considerable benefits.

While support for a change in government was made clear in the recent general election, the likely impact on development in London is far from clear.

Grant Leggett, executive director and head of London, Boyer