With the new housing targets announced yesterday by the government most of the focus has been on the impact of rural areas with the new grey field concept but let us not forget the impact on more urban settings like London.
The overall target for the whole Greater London has been reduced by 10,000 annually from the target set by the previous Tory government. That is a total of 88,000 across the whole of London. This is then broken down to figures for each London borough where most of the increased targets are in Inner Central London towards West London boroughs like WCC, RBKC, H&F and very little emphasis in outer Londoner boroughs except for Bexley. Actually almost all the boroughs in Outer London had their figures reduced, so it can not be said to be impacting much on the green fields of Outer London at all really!
In the the City of Westminster, the Council will be expected to more than double their target outputs of housing to 4,341 and from 1,862.
In this respect, the council will have to look at increasing densities on proposed developments; conversions to residential and also some change of use on some major sites. I have can think of all three variants on sites and developments near me like the possible conversion of Tresco House along Lisson Grove, NW1; higher densities already on the second phase of West End Gate; and possible change of use to residential on site which have been lying empty for office developments like the Cucumber in Merchant Square in Paddington Basin.
In the meantime, the council under the Labour administration have successfully opened a new development of 100 council homes for social rent, on the Ebury Bridge redevelopment site, just West of Victoria Railway Station tracks entering into the station which falls into Knightsbridge & Belgravia Ward incredibly.
So let us watch and see how the Council proposes to meet this new annual target for Central London boroughs like for the City of Westminster, when everybody assumed that Outer London would face to accommodate the additional housing in London overall on these newly designated Grey fields.
