The London Land Commission has today published a database of “publicly owned land” that could be capable of delivering a minimum of 130,000 homes.
On the face of it, what’s not to like? This demonstration of existing capacity for new houses should be welcomed, that said there seems to be plenty of work still to be done.
It seems only fair to acknowledge that this is an initial sieve of sites in the London boroughs, and it is probable that the content of the database is only ever going to be as good as the information that feeds into it. However, it was reasonably surprising to see my house included in this “census of publicly owned land in London”. My house was indeed once owned by the Royal Borough of Kingston; however, it has now been in private ownership for over 40 years. It leads me to question what other land is in the database, the outputs within Kingston’s borough boundaries seem particularly interesting and unlikely to be worthy of much further interrogation.
The Commission was set up last year to identify sites owned by the public sector that could be redeveloped, with the GLA intending to work with the owners to realise their potential. The database is a great idea in that it is supposed to show land owned by all public organisations. However, it is evident from just a first glance that this will need significant further work, and should in no way be read as the solution required to meet London’s ever growing housing need. Other solutions are still essential to improve housing delivery.
The database needs further review in order to remove irrelevant sites from the list. For example, it includes schools and ad hoc strips of highways land as well as houses such as mine. Where completed, it helpfully categorises whether land is operational and identifies existing uses which should enable useful analysis once this information is more reliably populated.
Anyway, if I could afford the pre-application advice fee I would talk the Mayor to see if he can help me realise the significant potential of my 1920s semi-detached house, to do my bit helping answer the housing question in London.
For further information and access to the database please use the link below: