Making housing genuinely affordable

Listen to this roundtable focussing on a UK-wide discussion on making housing genuinely affordable, exploring challenges and solutions for UK cities.

With the new government's ambition to build 1.5 million homes within five years, and the devolution revolution transferring more powers from Westminster to local authorities, this roundtable will focus on a UK-wide discussion on making housing genuinely affordable, exploring challenges and solutions for UK cities.

Since 1980, urban population growth has surged worldwide with industrialisation in the Global South and re-urbanisation around knowledge and service economies in the Global North. Good urbanisation requires planning for future population growth with infrastructure, site development, utilities and amenities. However, few countries have accurately anticipated this growth, resulting in a shortage of homes, infrastructure, and necessary services. This failure particularly affects young people and those on lower incomes, who need the job opportunities of the city but can't find adequate housing.

At least 20 different explanations and solutions have been proposed: build new cities, regenerate old cities, densify the suburbs, connect metropolitan cities and regions to create polycentric land uses with more housing nodes, reform the planning system in favour of more house building, and build more public housing. However, there are few examples of a comprehensive approach that combines multiple strands into an integrated solution. What would an integrated approach look like in the major cities of the UK?

This roundtable is part of the Cities Forum, which brings together national and international experts working in cities around the world to share best practice on some of the biggest challenges facing cities, and to help NLA shape our wider cities programming. The webinar provides the opportunity to listen in to the roundtable discussion, open to anyone interested in solving the affordable housing challenge in all cities, especially in the UK.

NLA’s international programme brings together cities, stakeholders, speakers and audiences to foster cross-city dialogues. Through these collaborative discussions, the London’s built environment industry can learn from national and international cities, share experiences, and develop expertise to identify solutions, skills, and inspiration to create a better city.

Speaker biographies

Kate Webb

Head of Housing Strategy, Greater London Authority

Alicia Egan

Head of Regeneration, London Borough of Bromley

Stephen Workman

Technical Director and Residential Sector National lead, AtkinsRéalis

Dr Julie Grail

Managing Director, The BIDs Business

Sophie Rosier

Director, Savills

Ian Mulcahey

Principal, Global Director of Cities, Gensler

Ben Williamson

Director, PRP Architects

Paul Karakusevic

Principal, Karakusevic Carson Architects

Jamie Smith

Development Director, Related Argent

NLA Webinar on Zoom

Once you have registered, a reminder to confirm the event details and a link to access the webinar will be sent a day before the event. If you have any questions, please contact the NLA Events Team: events@nla.london.

Making housing genuinely affordable

Speaker biographies

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