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London association secures planning for five rooftop development schemes
A London-based housing association has secured planning permission for 71 new homes to be built on the roofs of five existing developments.
Sutton Housing Society has secured planning permission from the London Borough of Sutton for the five rooftop developments across the south-west London borough.
The association submitted the five planning applications simultaneously and will now start work on the first of the sites early next year.
As well as adding the new homes, the projects will modernise the fabric and appearance of the blocks.
The additional homes will increase the stock owned by the 485-home landlord by 16%. All its current stock is let at social rent levels and more than 75% is for over-55s. All the new rooftop homes will be affordable and targeted at over-55s.
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Rooftop development, also known as airspace development, has been on the agenda for several years as a way of tackling the housing crisis, but has yet to secure widespread appeal.
In 2019, the then housing secretary James Brokenshire announced that the government would give £9m to airspace developer Apex Airspace to develop 78 rooftop homes in London.
However, airspace development could grow in the coming years, after the government announced this month that it would be relaxing planning rules for adding two storeys to existing buildings.
Robin Roberts, chief executive of Sutton Housing Society, said: “Although we are a smaller social landlord, we’ve worked hard to unlock the development potential of our existing schemes and establish an ongoing development pipeline.
“So rather than submit five planning applications at different times, we decided to grab Sutton Council’s attention by submitting all five simultaneously.”
