Any green space within one mile of a tram stop or railway station might be available for housing development according to Mayor Khan’s draft London Plan. ANDREW PELLING takes a look at the new proposals
London Mayor Sadiq Khan wants to see Croydon as the location of 5,600 new, high-density homes on “Greenfield”, or Green Belt, land. This will be in addition to 15,944 homes on Croydon brownfield sites. All to be achieved by 2037.
Little boxes on the hillside: the draft London Plan calls for almost 6,000 high-density homes on Croydon Green Belt
That’s according to the latest draft London Plan, which was released this week with less fanfare than the announcement that Mayor Khan is to be made a peer in Keir Starmer’s resignation honours.
Under the draft London Plan, swathes of land from New Addington to the Addington Hills, from Lloyd Park and Park Hill and on to Haling Grove, could be transformed to residential estates in a way not seen in Croydon since the 1960s.
Last year, Mayor Khan said that it was not practical to think that all London’s housing need could be met from brownfield sites.
In his latest draft London Plan, which is out to consultation until October 15, Mayor Khan has selected nine outer London Boroughs where Green Belt and green spaces need, in his view, to be released for high-density housing. Croydon is the only borough south of the Thames included in Khan’s list.
The changes locally will need Croydon Council’s co-operation in adjusting its own Local Plan. This will take a long time, probably all the way to 2037, as Croydon’s Local Plan is only coming to the end of its most recent revision.
Hard hat: London Mayor Sadiq Khan has set tough house-building targets for the next decade
The need for the London Mayor to work with the city’s boroughs was underlined by Croydon Mayor Jason Perry when, in his role as the member for planning for the London Councils organisation – the cross-party association of all the capital’s local councils – he made a statement emphasising that the London Plan needed to be “grounded in the realities of local delivery”.
The draft London Plan identifies New Addington as the anchor for housing intensification, along with development loosely associated with all the stops along the tram line to East Croydon and Addiscombe, and also South Croydon Station.
The identification of development near tram stops and rail stations is in line with consultation earlier this year on the National Planning Policy Framework, allowing for building on sites within 15 minutes’ walk – about one mile – of public transport facilities.
Likely sites for greenfield housing are thus green land running through and around New Addington, Featherbed Lane, Gravel Hill, Addington Hills, Coombe Wood, Croham Hurst, Park Hill, Lloyd Park, Shirley Park, Addiscombe Recreation Ground, Ashburton Park and Haling Grove. The draft London Plan has a table of potential areas for development, which you can find by clicking here.
These proposals are likely to be resisted by Mayor Perry.
This week Nick Bowes, of public relations firm London Communications Agency (they handle, among others, the PR for the Westfield developers in Croydon) said that London’s boroughs will be “crucial” in delivering Lord Khan’s London Plan, but that the May local elections have created a notably different set of circumstances for the Labour-controlled City Hall.
Detailed plan: there’s a full list of greenfield sites in Croydon in the draft London Plan
“Potential policy flashpoints which might have been dealt with behind closed doors when 21 of the 32 boroughs were in Labour’s hands look likely instead to explode into the open,” Bowes predicts.
“Building on Green Belt, New Towns, borough housing targets, changes to affordable housing thresholds, suburban densification, tall buildings… the list goes on. Might we see alliances of LibDem, Green and Conservative councils, united by their opposition to aspects of planning policy, to fight the Labour Mayor and Labour government?”
And Bowes, himself a former City Hall policy-maker, added a reality rider: “While a worthy blueprint for the London of the future, the fact is that, for housebuilders in particular, there are much greater forces at play which are making it all but impossible to get shovels in the ground.
“At least in the short term, the draft London Plan won’t help with this.”
The figures in the London Plan are, after all, a long way away from the reality of a home building industry that is crushed by high interest rates, high material costs and a lack of skilled labour. The draft London Plan seeks 558,000 new homes in London over 10 years, but annual build to March 2026 was only 10,870 – not even one-fifth of the required rate.
Such a pitiful rate at a time of acute housing need may even encourage Lord Khan to seek a ministerial role in the Lords, rather than face the electorate again in 2028.
- Andrew Pelling is a former MP and Croydon councillor, who was the borough’s first London Assembly Member in 2000
In the latest Andrew Fisher Interview, Fiona Fletcher-Smith, the chief executive of housing association L&Q, talks frankly about the barriers facing housing providers and developers to try to deliver enough new homes to end the housing crisis. Premium content for Inside Croydon’s paying subscribers, click here to sign up and listen now to our in-depth and informed interview
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With their overt contempt for our environment, Khan seems determined to lose the 2028 Mayor of London election, as does Burnham the next General Election
Is my recollection that “nice honest” Keir Starmer reassured us that he was talking about a bit of derelict land with an abandoned garage that was inadvertently included in the greenbelt, when he spoke of using some greenbelt land, just my mind playing tricks on me.
Pretty much everyone in the south areas voted for Perry because he opposed all this in his 2nd term manisfesto. Let’s hope Perry holds his word.
I do hope there is widespread opposition to these plans but I have no idea why anyone would trust the Conservatives not to build on the Green Belt? https://insidecroydon.com/2022/10/31/part-time-perrys-halloween-howler-on-tory-investment-zones/
We are in the middle of the worst housing crisis since WW2. High rise slums aren’t the answer.
I’m lucky enough to have Woodside Green, Ashburton Park, South Norwood rec and the country park on my doorstep. Everyone should have ample green spaces in walkable distance and everybody should have a decent, secure and affordable home.
We built great council estates with social and youth clubs before, New Addington springs to mind. Maybe places like Kenley Aerodrome should be included in the discussion? We could build council housing again but more sustainably by extending public transport links, healthcare, schools and building a mix of housing and establishing new parks, sports and recreation grounds.
I’m glad the debate has started, hope realism and common sense wins out.
Don’t bank on it Selena !
Powerless Perry’s principles are always for sale to the highest bidder, and if the (ineffectual) Government Commissioners decide to support the government’s attempts to expand London again and concrete over the green belt, Piss-Poor won’t be able to do anything about it. If he had spent his first term as mayor doing more to get Westfield to do something (anything) to regenerate the centre of Croydon, insterad of just letting increasing amounts of tumbleweed blow through the emptying Whitgift Centre, we wouldn’t need to build houses on every patch of green space in the borough.
I’ve long thought that developers will be after Addiscombe Rec
Not entirely sure how it works, but if the new government or large developer offers £1.7bn for all of CC’s parks to clear all of croydon council’s debts … i am almost certain Perry will say yes. Won’t be nice to see Lloyd Park become a crack dealing housing estate or Addiscombe Rec for that matter but as you can see in Burnham’s pledge to end homelessness and build more housing…anything is possible.
There should never be a discussion on increased housing until an assessment is done on the local services and provision is put in place accordingly and committed to before ground is broken.
The transport links near new addington etc are not fit for purpose to handle more of an influx. ‘Khan won’t put more trams on will he. Or increase bus frequency or anything remotely logical.
Until those things are done, adding housing is ludicrous