HBF calls for next London mayor to seek realistic planning obligations and consider alternative providers of planning services

The recommendations in the HBF's Blueprint for Building the Homes London Needs (6-page / 3.4 MB PDF) include ensuring that "unrealistic and inflexible" planning obligations do not threaten the viability of developments and considering whether London "could make use of new powers to introduce an element of competition into the planning application process".

The document says "excessive" planning obligations, including affordable housing requirements, have been shown in the past to lead to fewer homes being delivered. It recommends that the incoming mayor following next month's election "should consider viability issues presented by additional obligations and requirements on developers over and above the prevailing position with particular concern for how they may affect the deliverability of sites".

The blueprint says the new mayor will have an important role to play in driving local economic growth through planning departments in the context of dwindling planning capacity at individual boroughs. The authors suggest the mayor "should consider whether London is best served by having more than 30 separate monopolistic local authority planning services advising planning committees on applications" and recommend that consideration is given to the use of alternative providers.

The HBF has called for a continuation of the policy of bringing forward public land for housing development, including close work with "bodies such as the NHS Trusts and Network Rail". In line with central government policy, the trade body has also asked the new mayor to look at the capacity for London's existing housing estates to be regenerated.

Other recommendations in the blueprint include supporting permitted development (PD) rights allowing offices to be converted into homes, taking "a positive approach" to investment in the private rented sector (PRS), and co-operating with councils across south east England "to plan for the homes the region needs".

Planning expert Victoria Lindsay of Pinsent Masons, the law firm behind Out-Law.com, said: "London's housing crisis is the number one mayoral election issue. Many of the recommendations in this report are not new. There are a number of tools in the toolkit to get London building – housing zones, PD rights, public sector land development, starter homes, estate regeneration, higher density, PRS, but the next mayor will be under pressure to deliver. It's not long to go now before we know who will step into mayor Johnson's shoes and take on the housing crisis."