CPRE London’s Campaign for a Liveable London is seeking people-centered solutions to London’s housing crisis. Our early findings point to three issues that we argue need to be strengthened in the Mayor’s draft London Housing strategy:
- Neighbourhood inclusion and wellbeing - stimulating community ownership through greater investment in community facilitators, community-led governance and participatory budgeting arrangements.
- Devolving local powers – joined-up planning and community assets, housing choice, unlocking previously developed and stalled sites, repurposing suburbs, and better land reporting.
- Finance and quality of affordable homes - stimulating alternative and longer-term investment models, factoring in on-going maintenance costs, and creating a housing ‘liveability league table’.
Cutting across each of these issues is the need to put people back at the centre of the housing strategy. Addressing housing needs requires targeted commitment and investment, working with local people to understand their needs and the best ways to deliver it, in active partnership with Londoners.
As the draft London Housing strategy states - to avoid repeating the mistakes of the past and not simply focusing on a ‘numbers game’ of building more houses -we need to focus on the process of identifying who the new homes are for, where they are best placed and how they will best contribute to ‘neighbourhood liveability’ over time.
A full copy of our response is available here or click on the link below.
