Welcome policy reforms but will it unlock housebuilding in London?

Welcome policy reforms but will it unlock housebuilding in London? – what you need to know about the Mayor’s new measures to support housebuilding

The Mayor of London is consulting via ‘Support for Housebuilding’ a new London Plan Guidance which tackles:

1. Temporary modifications to cycle parking requirements.
2. Revisions to London Housing Design Guidance to relax dual aspect and dwelling per core restrictions.
3. A temporary Affordable Housing concession proposed to set a new threshold route for 20% Affordable Housing (or 35% for Public Sector or on Industrial Land where industrial floorspace capacity is not being reprovided).

Separately but complimentarily, the Government is also consulting on new legislation to kickstart house building in London.  Whilst this briefing note focuses on the Mayor’s consultation, the below are complimentary and Planning Insight has considered the Government’s consultation in more detail here

• Temporary Community Infrastructure Levy (CIL) Relief; and,
• Additional powers to the Mayor of London to call-in and determine both applications comprising 50 or more homes; and applications in the Green Belt or on MOL comprising development of over 1,000sqm.

The deadline for both consultations is midnight on 22^nd January 2026 (see links below).

Here we consider the Mayor’s London Plan Guidance policy consultation in more detail and share Planning Insight’s proposed consultation response for Clients that may wish to replicate our response in their own submissions.

1.Cycle Parking Requirements

The Mayor has accepted that current London Plan ‘minimum cycle parking standards’ for residential development are onerous, impact development viability (through expensive basements and/or sterile ground floor space) and do not take account of more flexible cycle/scooter hire options that are increasing in popularity.

As such the current long-stay London Plan standards (London Plan Table 10.2) and the cycle storage benchmark (Large Scale Purpose Built Shared Living LPG Table 3.2) are to be superseded by new standards set out at Table 2.1 and Figure 2.1 of the Consultation replicated here for ease of reference alongside the equivalent existing Standard.

London Boroughs are to be grouped into three bandings as illustrated in the extracted Figure 2.1 below.

This component of the guidance is temporary and applies until 31 March 2028 or until a revised London Plan is published, whichever is earlier.  We assume that the next iteration of the London Plan will embed these revised standards or perhaps a further iteration rather than revert to the current London Plan Standards.

Table 1: Comparison of Current London Plan Cycle Parking Standards vs new proposals in Bands 1-3.

Source: Support for housebuilding London Plan Guidance, November 2025

The new guidance would also allow for other types of cycle parking to count towards minimum long stage requirements which might reduce the number of spaces required within the development itself.

• Space and infrastructure for public cycle or scooter hire, on either the development site or the carriageway;
• Managed onsite shared cycles or scooters;
• On street parking such as cycle hangers; and
• Financial contribution towards offsite communal cycle parking.

For PBSA and PBSL the guidance acknowledges that greater levels of hire or shared cycle parking than at other residential developments will be an acceptable.

Other considerations include:

• Avoiding the need for a basement or additional basement level that might impact viability.
• A small building footprint relative to overall floorspace
• Whether a very large requirement has a disproportionate effect on otherwise lettable or saleable floorspace.
• Avoid creating blank frontages to buildings or very large stores which are perceived to be unsafe.
• Cycle hangers/shelters can be used but must consider safety, access and siting in active or overlooked locations.
• Cycle storage within dwellings as additional floorspace i.e. not sacrificing space standards, other storage or amenity space.
• Cycle storage outside dwellings for use as cycle parking or other storage.

2.Dual & Single Aspect Homes and Dwellings per Core

There will be greater flexibility within Standard C4.1 to allow for the provision of dual and single aspect homes.  This will be at the discretion of the decision maker providing it can be demonstrated that single aspect homes have adequate passive ventilation, daylight and privacy and avoid overheating.

The design standard (B2.5) that limits number of units per core to eight units will be withdrawn and Planning Authorities should be supportive of securing more homes and exceeding eight per core providing that Building Regulations / Fire Safety requirements are met.

3.Affordable Housing at 20%

The Mayor of London intends to introduce a new 20% affordable housing route that will not be required to demonstrate Financial Viability Appraisal (FVA) providing planning permission is in place by 31 March 2028 and a development milestone is reached by 31 March 2030.

The proposal is for a new time-limited planning route as an ‘emergency measure’ to sit alongside existing mechanisms i.e. Fast Track Route at 35%.

The time limited route will be available until 31 March 2028 or the publication of a new London Plan whichever is earlier.  Planning permission will need to have been secured by the deadline.

A ‘gain-share review mechanism’ will only be necessary if the scheme has not reached a construction milestone by 31 March 2030.  This milestone is proposed to be construction of the first floor buildings within the scheme.  Or for larger phased schemes the first floor of buildings together providing at least 200 homes.

In circumstances where the construction milestone has not been met the LPAs require a Late Stage Review once 75% of the development is completed.

The policy would be applied as follows:

• 20% affordable housing by habitable room for residential schemes on private land (current policies require 35% AH)
• 35% affordable housing by habitable room for residential schemes on public land (current policies require 50% AH)
• 35% affordable housing by habitable room for residential schemes on industrial land where industrial floorspace capacity has not been re-provided (current policies require 50% AH).
• 20% affordable housing by habitable room for residential schemes on industrial land where industrial floorspace capacity has been re-provided
• 20% affordable housing by habitable room for residential schemes on utilities sites where evidence of substantial decontamination, enabling and remediation costs is provided.

For schemes to be eligible they must:

• Ensure that the first 10% of the affordable provision will not be grant funded.
• Include a minimum of 60% of the affordable as Social Rent with the remaining 40% as intermediate tenures.
• In the case of BTR schemes ensure that at least 30% must be at or below LLR levels or Key Worker Living Rent and 70% at genuinely affordable rents.

The following are ineligible for the 20% route:

• Sites on or released from Green or Grey Belt
• PBSA or Large Scale Purpose Built Shared Living (i.e. co-living) or schemes where these tenures comprise 50% or more of total scheme GIA.
• Where existing affordable housing is being demolished including estate regeneration.

The benchmark grant rates for Affordable Housing will be:

• £220,000 per home for Social Rent
• £70,000 per home for Shared Ownership
• £90,000 per home for Intermediate Rent (where rents are above LLR benchmarks)
• £140,000 per home for Key Worker Living Rent homes or Intermediate Rent (where rents are below LLR benchmarks)

For existing ‘consented’ schemes it may be possible to re-evaluate the scheme based on a minimum 20% affordable threshold, however, such schemes will first need to demonstrate that the currently approved affordable housing quantum cannot be maintained via Housing Grant and/or CiL Relief (see our separate note on 50% CIL Relief).

Conclusion and Planning Insight’s proposed consultation response.

Planning Insight generally welcomes this recognition of ongoing market challenges and housing viability.  It is good that GLA Officers have looked at the issues in the round understanding that the issue is not just viability of affordable housing and CIL obligations but also the application of certain policies and design standards.

We are aware of many developers who consider 20% affordable housing to impede development viability, noting that there have been multiple instances of residential schemes being approved at significantly less than 20%, subject to the necessary FVA process of course.

We do consider that more needs to be done to support smaller scale developers in particular, who will not benefit from the currently proposed CIL Relief on minimum liabilities of £500,000.  Other challenges to scheme viability include BNG, Mayoral CIL, Building Safety requirements and the delays / cost inherent in the current planning system.

Our comments on the specific consultation points follow.

Cycle Parking Standards

With regard to cycle parking we consider the direction of travel of policy change to be helpful.  It recognises the challenges faced by developers and the costs and design impacts of bland frontages and unwelcoming vast cycle stores in basements.

The reduction in quantums contained in revised parking standards are welcomed and will be beneficial to schemes in Bands 2 and 3.

We welcome the flexibility in the policy to consider alternative means of provision that could mitigate the need for cycle stores within a building, in particular, those that may be compromised by scale or footprint etc.  It is important that LPAs and the GLA recognise and apply this flexibility in their pre app discussions and decision making.

For Band 1 locations there is no change and these being some of the highest value areas where land/floorspace comes with a premium we suggest this remains a relatively onerous requirement to provide cycle parking in generally very accessible / walkable locations well served by public transport.  The Band 1 standard should perhaps be relaxed further in line with Band 2.

We hope that the next iteration of the London Plan will maintain these revisions, or indeed develop them, rather than revert to prior standards.

Dual and Single Aspect and Units per Core

We welcome the removal of inflexible standards and hope that this encourages pragmatic dialogue between Planning Officers and Applicants.  There are plenty of instances where good quality design can unlock greater volumes of housing with very little compromise on that standard of accommodation and there are good examples of how such compromise can be mitigated (for with example larger unit sizes, enhanced amenity space and fantastic unobstructed views over parks or waterways).

Similarly, units per core has been an unwelcome restriction on schemes where site constraints / configuration impact layout and more could be achieved through greater flexibility.

We therefore welcome the approach proposed on both Single Aspect and Units per Core.

20% Affordable Housing Route

Whilst recognising that even 20% affordable housing remains challenging in current market conditions, Planning Insight also acknowledged the fundamental need for affordable housing delivery in London.

The approach proposed is a helpful development.  We recognise the intent to make this only a temporary measure but we hope that it could be extended or made permanent if evidence indicates that this route is delivering more market and affordable homes in due course.

One concern we do have relates to meeting the relevant deadlines for Planning by 31 March 2028 and the construction milestone of 31^st March 2030.

For any new schemes yet to be submitted for Planning, the March 2028 deadline is quite tight particularly when factoring delays we currently experience in S106 negotiations or indeed schemes which may be called in for determination by the Mayor or Secretary of State.  We note there may be discretion to extend such deadlines for Building Safety Regulator delays but the same discretion must be in place for other matters outside of the Applicant’s control.

Similarly, where construction must have completed to first floor level by 31^st March 2030 there are matters outside of an Applicant’s control that could indeed prevent this from happening despite their best endeavours.  Matters such as discharging of pre commencement conditions or approval of reserved matters.  There again must be some flexibility in the policy to allow an extension of time where it can be demonstrated that the delay rests with a regulatory body and not the Applicant themselves.

The Consultation documents for the London Plan Guidance can be found here.  Consultation responses can be mailed to londonplan@london.gov.uk

To access the other consultation from the Government regarding CIL Relief and Mayor’s Call In Powers follow this Link And the consultation portal via this Link or you can email your responses directly on:

londonhousingconsultation@communities.gov.uk

If you have a development opportunity that may be influenced by these proposals, please contact Stuart Baillie on Stuart@planninginsight.co.uk to discuss.