HOUSING
Jo McCafferty, Director, Levitt Bernstein

The NLA Expert Panel on Housing made great progress this year, dissecting housing under the key themes of ‘People, Place and Planet’. From our initial introductory session, the topics of empowerment, choice and stewardship emerged as central to successful long-term regeneration. This led us to scrutinise the residential ballot process and gather best practice from our collective experience, to encourage equality across boroughs and give clarity to a policy which was intended to deeply empower communities and give a voice to all those at the threshold of change in their own neighbourhood.

 

The panel visited South Thamesmead to see the large-scale regeneration programme Peabody has underway. As part of the visit, we learnt more about the public ballot held just before the first lockdown in 2020. Five key recommendations for future ballot processes across London were identified covering the themes of eligibility, engagement methods and the transparency of the ballot process. The panel’s discussion drew on individual experiences, particularly where infill, extension and refurbishment had been considered in place of wholescale estate demolition. We explored the remit and scope of ballots within this scenario and the most successful post-covid approaches to engagement. We also discussed the potential for a two-stage ballot process, focused on early and meaningful neighbourhood engagement to establish key principles through an initial ballot, followed by a more detailed collaborative process to develop final designs and a detailed charter of commitments to local residents and businesses. The aim was to achieve a more consistent and meaningful pan-London process and also help reduce the timescales and investment required to establish initial regeneration principles in the early stages.

 

A working group focused on GLA Housing Standards examined the draft guidance and met with the GLA for a productive discussion. Much of the new London Plan guidance was welcomed, with the discussion focusing on quality requirements and targets and the key aspects of housing layout, resilience to climate change and how meeting the higher advisory guidance could be incentivised by additional GLA grant funding.

 

On the final theme of Planet, the panel explored recommendations to help remove barriers to achieving zero carbon homes. Viability challenges and the 'pricing in' of risk due to skills shortages, supply chain issues and rapidly rising material costs in construction were analysed as part of this session, and we all agreed knowledge sharing was a crucial component of rapid upskilling across the industry. It was also agreed that consistency of approach, targets and policy were crucial across London – and a key issue for the Mayor to address. 

 

Thank you to everyone who has committed so much time to these valuable sessions and visits to date. Across the year, we have established some key topics to be targeted in the New London Agenda and I look forward to drafting these with the new panel.