Last week I attended a Future of London panellist event, entitled, ‘London 2050 – Grow up or grow out’. The panel consisted of Sir Edward Lister (GLA Chief of Staff and Deputy Mayor, Policy and Planning), Adam Challis (Head of Residential Research, JLL), Michèle Dix (Managing Director, Group Planning, Transport for London), Chris Hall (Director, GVA), Andrew Beharrell (Executive Director, Pollard Thomas Edwards) and Pat Hayes (Executive Director, Regeneration & Housing, LB Ealing).

The discussion was centred around London’s continual evolution, its housing need and how best to supply such need. Below I have outlined the event and some of the most interesting and thought provoking points to have come out of it.

The event opened with a question put to the audience, how should growth be delivered to be of maximum benefit to London? Through infill and intensification or via outwards expansion into Greenbelt territory? Simply put, should London grow up or grow out? By show of hands the audience proposed, by a slim majority, that the city should look to ‘grow up’.

But would densification work for London? The city’s booming love affair with tall buildings is evidence that London has no qualms with growing upwards. Moreover, undeniably, height works for other global cities, indeed in some parts of Hong Kong average density stands at 2,500 dwellings per hectare. However, compare this to the average of 25 dwellings per hectare of London’s Metro land and we need to reiterate the question, would it work for London?

So perhaps the solution is to look outwards after all. Panellists and the audience seemed relatively supportive of Greenbelt development, and the point was raised that there is huge potential for trapped Greenbelt land in areas such as Redbridge. In addition, population movements out of London towards the South East are predicted to increase in the coming years as the housing market recovers.

Unfortunately, many potential development sites are not well connected and though current programmes such as CrossRail and Thameslink are underway, transport schemes need to be started now to enable completion in 20 or 30 years’ time.  With London set to grow by another million people over the next decade, is expansion into the Greenbelt the most viable, sensible option?

The conclusive point of the morning was fairly simple, there is not one, blanket solution to providing growth. The future housing development to take place in the city should perhaps look to London itself for inspiration, it is a city characterised by its diversity, uniqueness and unsystematic sprawl. The parts of London that make up the whole require different and individual housing solutions.