Out-Law / Your Daily Need-To-Know

Out-Law News 2 min. read

Small developers could help TfL deliver new London homes on surplus land, says report


Closer relationships with smaller developers and local planning authorities (LPAs) would bring Transport for London (TfL) closer to its ambition of delivering 10,000 new homes on its land by 2020, according to a new report.

London mayor Sadiq Khan made a manifesto commitment to free up more publicly-owned land for housebuilding in the capital, including on the 5,700 acres of land owned by TfL. A new report by the London Assembly Housing Committee (38-page / 1.5MB PDF) makes a number of recommendations to the mayor and to TfL on how best to deliver new homes on TfL land.

In its report, the committee said that TfL had the potential to become a "significant property developer". However, making a success of this would require considerable investment of time and money, as well as organisational change, it said.

The report added that any public investment in TfL's transition would "[act] as a multiplier", as the lessons learned could be used by other public organisations.

"TfL's move into property development reflects the new financial reality in which it operates," said infrastructure planning expert Duncan O'Connor of Pinsent Masons, the law firm behind Out-Law.com. "The government announced in 2015 that it would be removing the grant which TfL receives for operational costs. The grant for the current financial year will be TfL's last. On top of that, the mayor has frozen fares until 2020."

"Commercial development of TfL's estate will therefore play a part in making up for this funding shortfall. But this report from the London Assembly recognises that it will take time for TfL to develop the appropriate expertise and organisational arrangements. TfL's development aspirations have been helped by the 2017 Neighbourhood Planning Act, which contains measures that will help TfL acquire additional land for development purposes," he said.

Land owned by TfL accounts for about 1.5% of London's land area, much of it north of the river due to the concentration of London's Tube lines. Although much of this land is unsuitable for development due to its size and difficulty with access, TfL has already drawn up a list of around 100 priority sites which it wishes to bring forward for development.

The London Assembly has recommended that TfL work more closely with the mayor's office and the London Land Commission in order to identify suitable sites for development and set out development priorities for each. It should then develop closer relationships with the London boroughs, as planning authorities, in order to accelerate project delivery and share some of the associated costs.

Internally, TfL should do more to ensure closer cooperation between its property development and operational and technical staff. It should also consider whether it needs to add a property professional to its board membership, to "ensure it has the right skills to scrutinise effectively, and offer leadership and governance capacity, on property development and management activities".

TfL should prioritise identifying and analysing smaller sites for potential development, so that more of them can be brought forward quickly, according to the report. It recommended that TfL put together a pilot approach to working with smaller builders by the end of 2017, with the idea that it could then quickly move to deliver "two or three 'quick win' sites as demonstration projects".

We are processing your request. \n Thank you for your patience. An error occurred. This could be due to inactivity on the page - please try again.