Grace Simmonds, Head of Learning & Engagement at NLA reflects on our ‘Housing Londoners: innovation in delivery and design’ report launch, analysing London’s housing challenge.

It's easy to have a bleak view on the state of housing in London, but what’s more challenging is to come up with positive actions for change. On 21st September NLA launched our latest housing report Housing Londoners: Innovation in delivery and design. With a room full of passionate changemakers, we put forward our latest research demonstrating some of the people and projects that are designing and delivering great housing in our capital. The report is action focused and makes some key recommendations – examining housing through the eyes of its citizens. The Citizen Dashboard, breaks down complex development processes into a simple formula of affordability, quality of life, sustainability and local benefit, for residents and local people to understand the value of new development. 

 

Claire Bennie, Director of Municipal and author of the essay, presented some of the key finding from the report but first questioned the audience – are we all trapped in a ground-hog day, what are we going to do to break the cycle? It’s clear we have a passionate and driven housing sector but change will only happen if we come together collectively with a focus on citizens needs. The four themes of the essay – affordability, quality of life, sustainability and local benefit, break down into further action points and recommendations which should be reviewed and enacted by policy makers. 

 

How we address and inform the public is key states Kate Webb, Head of Housing Strategy at the Greater London Authority, which is why The London Plan is being reimagined as a more decipherable and visual document to engage Londoners with – crucially public land and grant funding are key to unlocking more affordable home building. Peter Vernon, Chair of Grosvenor Hart Homes has set up the social enterprise to tackle the profound impact insecure and poor housing has on children and young people. The difference a safe and secure home has on physical and mental health, access to employment, and overall quality of life should not be understated. 

 

In Barking and Dagenham, BeFirst put together a group of 17 residents from every ward in the borough to define how they use each room in their house – this resulted in the findings that most people prefer a storage room than an en-suite, contrary to where value is usually placed by house builders. Amandeep Singh Kalra, Associate Director at BeFirst went on to say how local neighbourhoods and communities can meaningfully benefit from development is also down to protecting placemaking spend – stating that you can bring in extra value by other methods outside of Section 106 and Community Infrastructure Levy’s (CIL). For example, Gascoigne Estate has brought in money from the Forestry Commission to plant trees and Thames Water for sustainable drainage systems (SuDS). The sustainability agenda is now more relevant to residents says Mellissa Dowler, Director at Bell Phillips Architects, the conversation is changing now that people are more aware of the climate crisis, however there is still a degree of apathy due to conflicting crises of cost of living. We have to look at the problem holistically and work together with clients to develop the brief, with embodied carbon from first principles. 

 

Housing Londoners demonstrates how, as a collective, the built environment has the agency to innovate and enact positive change on London’s housing sector, but this collaboration must go further to include local residents, businesses and young people. Providing clarity around local benefit by adopting tools such as the Citizens Dashboard and displaying this on the hoarding of every scheme could be a gamechanger in building trust with Londoners and makes a clear statement of care and consideration that is needed from the industry.