HEIF5 Accelerating housing production in London Roundtable 1: Setting the priorities

On 23 November 2015 LSE London launched its new HEIF5 knowledge-exchange project, entitled Accelerating Housing Production in London. A small group of experts from the private sector, the public sector and academia gathered to discuss priorities—what are the key barriers to accelerating residential development in the capital? We started with some concerns identified by our earlier project: uncertainties in planning; the role of small and medium sized builders; housing zones; mayoral powers and financing issues. The conversation focused mainly on the uncertainties introduced by the planning negotiation process, the need to increase the number of sites—especially smaller sites–under development, and the potential role of Housing Zones. We also talked about some of the unintended consequences of office-to-residential conversions under permitted development.